


cycle through

by ambivalentangst



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Tony Stark, Brainwashing, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Hydra Tony Stark, Kidnapping, Obadiah Stane Being Even Worse Than In Canon, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, Whump, Winter Soldier Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 144,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23501851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentangst/pseuds/ambivalentangst
Summary: Twenty-five years ago, Tony Stark disappeared from his family home a month after the tragic deaths of his parents, Howard and Maria Stark, leaving a billion-dollar tech conglomerate without an heir and the world wondering what happened.Twenty-three years ago, HYDRA gained another super soldier.Ten years ago, Peter Parker’s parents died in what is ruled as a home invasion gone wrong but he knows was murder, plain and simple, because he spoke to the killer.And in the present, Project Insight fails, and the Iron Soldier pays the price.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark, James “Bucky” Barnes & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 820
Kudos: 470
Collections: Iron Man





	1. Chapter 1

_NEW YORK CITY - 10 YEARS AGO_  


There is a child in front of the Soldier, just a few years old, staring at him in wonder.

The Soldier has crawled in from an open window, having climbed up several stories in the dark of the evening to discover his presence, and the Soldier considers what he should do. He knew the Parkers have a child before now, even knows his name, but it did not occur to him that he would be interacting with him. The child is not the mission, after all, but his dark eyes hold wonder in their depths as he looks up from the toys in his little fingers.

“ _Woah_ ,” he breathes, and the Soldier tips his head to evaluate him.

He could kill the child. It would be easy enough, a flick of one of the many blades on his person or even simply his strong, experienced hands wrapping around his neck, but the thing is, the Soldier does not particularly _like_ to kill, and furthermore, the child has not done anything worth killing him for.

Can his handlers call him a witness if he hasn’t seen the Soldier doing anything wrong?

The Soldier knows the answer is yes and also that his handlers don’t have to claim he’s a witness to order the Soldier to eliminate him, but the Soldier _definitely_ does not like doing anything extra for them. So, the Soldier lifts his hands to his face, feeling for the weak points on his mask. They grew tired of the Soldier talking back long ago, but his muzzle is not as complicated a contraption as they seem to think. It is a simple matter of the right amount of pressure at a few key spots, and the amalgamation of metal and fabric falls into his hands.  
  


There is curiosity sparking in the child’s eyes, and the Soldier obligingly hands him his mask. He would give him his goggles too, but there should be no shooting today, which means he isn’t wearing them. Still, the child looks pleased with what he has given him, turning it over in his small hands. “Hi, Peter,” the Soldier says, lips curling artificially as he observes him. There is no emotion to his smile, only the mind of the Soldier that tells him the child will make less of a fuss if he doesn’t see him as a threat, but the child doesn’t know that. “You want to help me out with something?”

His voice is soft, carefully subdued and raspy from disuse, and the child instinctively copies its volume, looking up from where he’s fiddling with the muzzle. “How’d you get up here?” he asks, skirting the question with none of the Soldier’s own finesse but all of the blind excitement the Soldier doesn’t possess.

“That’s a secret,” the Soldier replies, crouching down, “but I can tell you if you do something for me first.”

An adult, even an older child, would understand that there are no good favors a creature that looks like the Soldier might ask, not with his empty eyes and the matte of the weapons strapped to his side, but the child is only that. The Soldier has made no move to expose himself as something worth fearing, and so the child merely nods.

“Stay in your room for me? Just for a few minutes. I need to talk with your mom and dad.”

The child nods, and the Soldier leaves him his muzzle. He’ll tell his handlers it fell off in the climb, and if he’s lucky, they won’t care enough to punish him for it. After all, the Soldier became imperfect a long time ago. He’s not the brute, blunt perfection of his most revered peer, but they have never been able to make him as mindless as his predecessor.

He heads for the door, footsteps silent despite the weight they should carry for the task the Soldier has been instructed to carry out.

The child holds his mask without fear, and the Soldier silently twists the knob of the last barrier standing between him and his mission.

“Have fun with your adult stuff,” the child tells him, voice still quieted.

The Soldier turns his head, flashing a dead smile. “Will do,” he lies, and then he is gone.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

The Soldier knows his cell. Granted, he is sure his cell changes from wipe to wipe, mission to mission, but they’re all the same. Four walls, one cot, one sink, one toilet, one shower, and seven cameras, with one in each corner of the room, two in the shower, and one more in the sink, though whether it’s in the drain or the faucet changes sometimes.

The Soldier is always watched at base, so though his thoughts spin constantly, he is never granted a moment for himself to use his brilliant mind to its potential. It’s as maddening as it is stifling, stuck in a grey room where he can do nothing but wait, so he is always grateful when someone comes to fetch him, even if he inevitably wants to plant a knife in the back of whoever it is.

Some days, the Soldier wishes he could be more like his predecessor in that he could truly let go, allow himself to forget and thoughtlessly do as he’s told, but the Soldier’s mind is tenacious and fast and angry, and no matter how many times they fry his intelligence away, it comes back with a vengeance, screaming to destroy and escape even if the Soldier’s body is theirs to control.

The man in front of him, the Soldier can intuit, is fragile.

He’s been dragged from the numbing familiarity of his quarters to sit in front of him, however, so he must be important, no matter how the Soldier can see the sweat forming on his brow.

The Soldier wishes he could bare his teeth just to see him jump, but he sees that his blank stare does a passable job of unnerving him on its own. The man’s eyes dart from the Soldier to his handler, and his finger taps nervously on the table. “Are you—are you sure he’s _stable?”_ he asks.

“Stable enough,” she replies.

The man does not look convinced, but his handler calls to the Soldier, forcing his attention away from him. “Soldier,” she snaps, and his shoulders instantly roll back. “You’re to accompany and protect Jasper Sitwell, here. Anything he asks of you, you do without delay. Our other Soldier has been hard at work, and you’re here to take care of his scraps, understood?”

The Soldier suspected something more was happening, but hearing that his counterpart is active again is a surprise—just not as surprising as hearing he’s going to be let out with him. 

(The Soldier’s mind is always running, and they’ve stopped allowing them to work together since the last time the Soldier realized the power in numbers.)

The Soldier is not allowed to have emotion and knows his face does not betray him. However, he is smart, and his handler knows this, revels in it more than most. She leans across the table and into his face, and it would be so easy to reach out and latch a hand around her neck as he wants, as he craves, but the Soldier is chained to his orders. She smiles, sensing what he’s already thought of. “Not to worry, Soldier. Sitwell is going to keep you two far apart. We would hate for you to get distracted.”

The Soldier hates her, _hates_ her, _hates her—_

And she is pulling away, and his face shows nothing.

“He’s all yours,” she says, and the Soldier can do nothing but comply.

//

_LONG ISLAND - 1981_

Long before there was ever the Soldier, there was a boy. That boy loved to tinker in his father’s lab in his family’s house, though his mother always ushered him from the premises when he came home. The night he meets Alexander Pierce is no exception.

He’s nearly finished with the car engine he’s been working on for the past couple of days when his mother appears in the lab, already in her Sunday best—hair made up, makeup immaculate, and not a wrinkle in her dress. “Tony,” she calls to him, “you have to leave early tonight. Your father is having guests for dinner, and we need to get you ready.”

He sighs with a mouth twisted in concentration and grease on his hands. “I’m almost done,” he pleads, trying to continue his project, but she comes over and swats his fingers with a rag sitting out—not hard enough to hurt, nevermind bruise, just enough to make her son look up at her and see the unimpressed tilt of her brows.

“I _said_ we need to get you ready.” And then, as if unable to hold her more severe expression a moment longer, she cracks a conspiratorial smile. “And if we’re fast, there might be a surprise treat before we eat.” He grins back, she shoos him from the room, and they spend the next half hour wrestling his wild hair into submission, getting the oil off his pale skin, and stuffing him into a slightly-too-tight suit. She _could_ let the maids take care of it, but the boy loves his mother, and his mother loves him. Besides, she’ll likely be up entertaining too late to tuck him in, so this is the extent of the time she’ll have with him today. 

“Who’s coming over, anyway?” the boy grumps, nose wrinkling but making no verbal protest as his mother artfully combs his hair into place.

“Some people from work. Your father’s especially impressed with one of the younger ones—Pierce, I think. He comes from a political family, but he’s interested in SHIELD.” She tips his chin up with her pointer finger, making the boy look into her eyes. “Be on your best behavior, alright? I’ll see what I can do to get you excused, but if your father asks any favors of you, don’t talk back to him.”

He nods, fiddling with his tie, and she kisses his forehead with a soft smile.

The boy will never admit it to his friends at school, but he loves her kisses.

When his father and his guests—including his business partner, who the boy calls Obie—walk through the front door that evening, there’s only one that bothers to crouch to the boy’s level and say hi—the one his mother told him about. Pierce shakes his hand and asks him how his day was, and the boy tells him the truth: his car engine is coming along great, but he needs a cool car to put it in.

The man, young and exuding a presence that, even at the tender age of seven, the boy can’t help but be taken in by, laughs. “Precocious, aren’t you?” he says, smiling wider than the boy’s father ever does at him before he ruffles his hair and continues towards the dining room.

The boy likes the praise, and his father doesn’t seem perturbed, so he doesn’t understand the chill that follows him as he trots along complacently and settles into a seat next to his mother. It’s strange, but as the adult conversation starts up, the boy’s mind moves onto other things, like the homework he has to get done before break is over and his creation still sitting in his father’s lab.

The boy won’t have a reason for his trepidation until much, much later, and by then, it will already be too late.

//

_SHIELD HQ - PRESENT_

The Soldier finds that Jasper Sitwell remains a fragile creature, even when the Soldier is put into civilian clothes, or at least clothes that make him look like the average agent instead of his normal self. 

The number of people who know about the Soldiers is kept to a minimum whenever possible, and so the Soldier molds himself into a quiet, unremarkable presence at Sitwell’s side.

He stands by him, watching the man they’re tracking—a man they call Captain.

The Captain seems familiar to the Soldier in a way that’s not like seeing an old handler or doctor. It’s as if he knows _of_ him, but he does not _know_ him, which makes sense considering the ruthless way he attacks the agents he’s found himself surrounded by. Furthermore, the Soldier does not find himself liking the Captain very much, though his feelings for him are not like those he harbors for his handlers.

The Soldier does not necessarily want to _kill_ the Captain so much as he would prefer that he stay out of his way, but he can admire his form as he fights. He personally knows it to be painful to keep going with those charged batons stuck into one’s skin, but the Captain seems to be holding his own.

“Mobilize strike units—twenty-fifth floor,” Sitwell says, and the Soldier’s face is blank, watching the fight happen. Sitwell can do as he likes, but the Soldier has been in similar positions to the Captain. A little bit of pain for freedom is far better than punishment, and the Soldier sees the Captain’s out long before he takes it.

Watching Rumlow go down—that’s something the Soldier can appreciate, along with the ease with which the Captain stands above the forms of his opponents.

The Soldier understands the thrill of surviving.

The Captain leaps, as the Soldier expects, and he wonders why, exactly, they think Sitwell is important enough to protect when he can’t even do his job because the Soldier knows, seeing the Captain’s resourcefulness, that he’s a lost cause the moment he breaks free of the elevator.

The Captain runs and drives, and when he escapes the compound, Sitwell, panting in the wake of his failure, turns to look at the Soldier. “Why didn’t you do anything?” he spits.

The Soldier knows how breakable men love to think they have power.

He blinks, unperturbed. “Did you tell me to?” he replies, and Jasper Sitwell’s hand cracks across his mouth in panic, in fury, in knowing he can because the Soldier may not be muzzled but he certainly cannot bite without orders.

The Soldier doesn’t flinch, and the Soldier remembers how he loves to see breakable men fall.

//

_LONG ISLAND - 1987_

The boy is thirteen now, and he’s gotten himself into a fight at school. His father is livid, and the boy remembers that he’s never liked his study, not even when the appeal of his brilliance was fresh and his father still thought he had potential.

“What were you thinking?” the boy’s father spits, and the boy, with his arms crossed and his feet planted, has no problem spitting back.

“John’s an asshole—he deserved it!” The boy can see the flames he’s stoking in his father’s expression, but he has never been good at holding his tongue, not even when it might help him. “ _He_ started it, anyway. Why is it my fault?” he demands to know.

John has been harassing him for months now—why should the boy be in trouble because he went after him like always and found that the boy had enough of his idea of fun?

It’s not _fair_ , but the boy’s father has an expression that looks like a storm sounds, and the boy knows he won’t understand.

“It’s your fault because you’re a Stark, and Stark men are made of iron. We don’t break for little _assholes_ who try to throw their weight around at school,” he growls, using the boy’s words against him, and the boy has a thousand whip-sharp retorts on his tongue.

The one that comes out is as damning as the worst of them.

“Maybe I don’t _want_ to be a Stark,” the boy says, tears burgeoning in his eyes despite his rage, and thunder booms in the study.

Really, Jasper Sitwell’s punishment is far from unique.

//

_SHIELD HQ - PRESENT_

The Soldier knows that failure is unacceptable, so he is not surprised when he is relieved of his duties with Sitwell. He is, however, pleased at the insecurity cracking across the man’s face when he returns to his handler’s side. The sudden vulnerability of losing his guard appears to have shaken him, and the Soldier feels vindicated, though his cheek is still smarting.

Sitwell walks away in shame, and then the door opens to reveal a man the Soldier does know. His handler salutes him, and the Soldier remains still.

Alexander Pierce crosses over to the Soldier with an easy smile, placing a hand on his shoulder like they’re friends. “How are you doing, Soldier?” When the Soldier doesn’t reply, Pierce merely gives a politician’s chuckle, knocking a finger against the Soldier’s chest, where the Soldier knows he knows his light is, and a faint clunk that would be alarming coming from anyone else echoes in the room.

The Soldier ignores the pain of having his battery jostled, fiery and acidic in the back of his throat. The Soldier knows pain, and what his light brings him is comforting as far as pain goes because it is _his_.

“How’s your heart?” he continues, already aware that the Soldier isn’t permitted to reply—not to him, anyway.

In fact, though the Soldier doesn’t remember it, Pierce is the one who made the rule.

The Soldier has been freed from his muzzle so that he could blend in with Sitwell, but talking back to a man who’d just disgraced himself and talking back to Pierce are very different things.

At the silence that follows, Pierce laughs again, patting the Soldier on the back and moving past him like nothing happened—like _he_ is nothing. The Soldier forgets when he doesn’t see him often, but he _hates_ Pierce, more than he hates his handlers, more than he hates anyone. There is something more to it than Pierce merely getting the final say on what the Soldier does, but the Soldier can’t remember _what_ , and Pierce is still talking.

“You’re going to be helping me out in a few days, Soldier. We’re moving into position for our takeover, and we’ve already shown our Asset. That’s where you come in.” He turns back around, but the Soldier can taste the condescension in his words. “He’ll be keeping the skies clear, but you’re going to keep things contained on the ground. Think you can do that for me?”

As if he could say no.

//

_LONG ISLAND - DECEMBER, 1991_

The boy is seventeen and home for a break, thinking about who he wants to invite to a party he’s planning on throwing that night, and a police officer comes to his door.

_“I’m sorry,”_ the man says. And, _“We need you to come down to the station.”_

And just like that, the boy believes his world to be gone.

Except it’s not.

Not yet.

//

_A VEHICLE EN ROUTE TO SHIELD HQ - PRESENT_

The Soldier is put with Rumlow, who finds out he’s going to be with him and doesn’t waste a second before curling his lip in a sneer. “Me and the genius, huh?” he says, and though the Soldier is used to similar nicknames, his next words ignite flames in the Soldier’s eyes. “I can’t get the braindead one?”

His handler sighs, as if there isn’t a simple set of words she can say to force him still under her thumb, as if he can honestly put up a fight. “You’re telling me,” she says. “Apparently, the Asset is acting alone. Pierce is confident he won’t need further instruction.” She motions toward the Soldier, who is wordlessly absorbing the information for his own knowledge. “This one is wilier. Send him on his own if you need to, but he works best under direct instruction.”

Rumlow sizes him up, his eyes even colder than the Soldier’s. “Me and smart guy here will get along just fine, don’t worry,” he assures her.

“You ready?” she asks him, checking over her weapons.

“Been ready a long time,” he replies.

The Soldier wants to cut his overzealous smirk off his face.

//

_LONG ISLAND - JANUARY, 1992_

The boy has been drinking. He’s older than he was when Pierce strolled into his life for the first time, nearly an adult, really, but not yet. Not now, when he’s destroyed the piano his mother put in his room on one of his birthdays because he can’t play it anymore without thinking of her, not when he’s trying to grieve his father but can only seem to think of the darkening of his eyes when he made him angry or the feeling of his palm smacking his cheek.

If the boy’s parents had gone a different way, he might feel worse about hating the memory of his father, but everyone knows how his father loved a drink, and the boy knows how his father never let his mother drive.

_An accident_ , the paper called it. _Murder_ , the boy thinks of it.

He should’ve said something before they left for the airport, he should’ve _smelled_ his father’s breath before he left the house with his mother, but he didn’t, and now their mansion—always too big for the three of them, even with the servants—feels so much colder than before.

His aunt’s called six times today, his best friend five, and just then—

A knock on the door.

The boy doesn’t plan on answering, but then he hears the low, familiar voice filter faintly through the house: “Tony? Tony—I know you’re in there.” A pause. “I brought pizza.” Another, a tad longer than the first. “And whiskey.”

The boy doesn’t want to see anyone, but he’s been working through the same bottle of stupid-expensive scotch for a day now, and Obie—

Well, if anyone gets it, it’s him. He’s been friends with the boy’s father for as long as he can remember, and his mother just the same. He might as well be another father to the boy, and he gets up to answer the door. When he does, Obie hides a wince at the sight of him, dark, bruise-like smudges under his eyes and hair greasy from days in bed.

“You said you had whiskey?” the boy croaks, and Obie follows him inside, to his mother’s favorite couch in the living room. “There’re glasses in the cupboard,” he mutters, as if Obie doesn’t know the house just as well as he does.

Obie talks, but Tony doesn’t listen until he pours him a drink, tossing it back nearly as fast as he gets it and not noticing that Obie ignores his own in favor of some of the pizza.

“How’ve you been,” Obie asks gently, and the boy shrugs, every part of his body aching with the motion.

“Great,” he replies, no life to his voice. All the boy wants to do is sleep, but he can’t, so he turns to the next best thing to make him forget and welcomes the burn of the liquor. “And you?”

A pause. “Alright,” Obie tells him, and the boy wonders if buying his own food and drink instead of having it brought to him out of pity will mean he’s alright too. “You left the house recently?” he asks, and that betrays a little more of the truth of the boy’s situation.

“Does it look like I’ve left the house?” comes his coarse answer.

“Just asking—just asking. Didn’t want to assume,” he placates him. “Have you heard anything about the company?”

“Who cares about the company, Obie?” the boy finally snaps and immediately regrets it. 

Obie’s just trying to help and he’s—he’s _ungrateful,_ like his father always said.

He blinks back a few tears, and some of the strength goes out of his shoulders, leaving them to sag. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, and then Obie’s arm is around his shoulders, soothing in its weight.

“It’s okay,” he assures him, and if the boy could muster the energy to look up from the amber depths of his glass, he might see Obie’s other hand clenching, his eyes hardening, betraying what he truly thinks of the boy’s tone.

They sit in silence, the boy soothed in some way to know that there is still someone left to hold him, and eventually, the boy grows tired—so, _so_ tired. It’s nice, actually, considering his sleep ever since the accident has been rough, to say the least. He’ll have to do something nice for Obie at some point to thank him for dropping by, but for right now, he just wants to head back to his room.

He yawns, taking another sip of his drink, and doesn’t see Obie’s eyes flit to a clock hanging on the wall before coming to rest impatiently back on him. “I’m going to head to bed,” he tells him, except when he stands, the world doesn’t stay still.

The boy stumbles, unsure when the carpet started spinning and of how to make it stop. He must’ve had more whiskey than he realized, he thinks, and Obie’s hands go to his shoulders, steadying him.

“Easy, Tony. Why don’t you lie back down?” he suggests, and yeah, that sounds like a good idea—he should do that. He nods, trusting Obie’s judgment.

He smacks his lips together, tasting a saltiness that whiskey doesn’t have, but his eyelids are suddenly too heavy for questions as he falls back onto the couch.

He feels a hand patting his head, and, oh, that’s right—Obie’s still there. Well, that’s alright then, isn’t it? The boy knows Obie, and he knows Obie won’t think it’s a big deal if he falls asleep, so he lets himself go. 

The boy will remember the couch being warm as he drifts off, and he will know Obie was watching over him, but the image that will haunt him before it will be wiped away with everything else is the last thing the boy sees before falling under: Obie’s glass still sitting on the coffee table—untouched.

//

_SHIELD HQ - PRESENT_

For all that the Soldier instinctively dislikes the Captain, he will say that he has a way with words. When his voice dies on the overhead, the room falls silent, hundreds of eyes on one another, seeing who is siding with who.

The Soldier has always hated the quiet. He would much prefer to fill a room with his voice, but his handlers have known this since the beginning of the Soldier. As a result, his muzzle is on and tighter than ever, cutting harshly into his skin. The Soldier wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bruise when it comes off, but it won’t matter. If he fails here, he’ll be surprised if he even remembers where the bruise came from come morning, so when Rumlow strides into the thick of the room, the Soldier grits his teeth and watches his back.

“Pre-emp the launch sequence. Send our ships up now,” he commands the man at the main computer, but the Soldier can see that though the man is trembling, he is not fragile like Sitwell was fragile. He doesn’t move. “Is there a problem?” Rumlow presses.

Though the man stutters, the Soldier knows this; if he were going to cave, he would’ve done it already.

“Is there a _problem?”_

“Sorry, sir.” A shaking breath, as if it might steady him. “I’m not gonna’ launch those ships. Captain’s orders.”

Sitwell was fragile and a coward. This man is fragile and will take the bullet.

There’s no use wasting time, then, is there?

Rumlow reaches for his gun, but before he can pull it, the Soldier rips the man from the chair and tosses him into the blonde agent standing near Rumlow like he weighs nothing, tuning out his scream of terror without even realizing he’s doing it. He takes the man’s seat without a word, and as his fingers fly across the keyboard—a _painfully_ simple sequence, and he still doubts Rumlow could enter it in any respectable amount of time—he feels adrenaline flood his veins. Gunshots fill the room, but the Soldier’s work is already done. He lifts his hands from the keyboard, tugs Rumlow to him, and bolts, dragging him along for two reasons. 

One, the Soldier will be punished if Rumlow turns up dead under his watch. 

That’s a given, but the other reason is more motivational and stems from Rumlow’s generally overconfident demeanor and what he dared to call Winter. 

Two, the Soldier wants to be the one to kill Rumlow, not some stray gunfire.

“ _You crazy son of a bitch!”_ Rumlow yells, and if the Soldier thought he was worthy of seeing the expression, he might smile beneath his mask at the rage in his voice.

_Good_ , he thinks, and then he lets go of Rumlow to run and shoot and _kill_ , to do what he was made for, and it’s just so easy. The Soldier watches men run at him, and they’re nothing—little bugs he picks off with a bullet here, a knife placed there. It flows like code under his experienced hands, a rhythm he falls into seamlessly and hates all the same: _punch, kick, shot, shot, stab, punch, stab, shot, kick—_

It’s the atmosphere the Soldier has been trained to survive in as long as he has existed, and though there is no joy in his actions and the bodies he leaves in his wake, it’s not hard to cleave his way through the masses, leaving Rumlow behind.

If the Soldier is not being wiped, then he is on an assignment, but quick kills or heists are not this—they are not a battle, and the Soldier’s use is plain enough in his name.

“Soldier!

_Stab, shot, shot, shot, shot, punch, shot, kick, stab, punch—_

_“Soldier!”_

It reaches him the second time but only because Rumlow is leading them somewhere new, somewhere without enemies for him to dispose of.

The Soldier halts, and Rumlow’s command reaches his keen ears perfectly. “Get to Pierce, now! He’s with the Widow.”

And that, as much as the Soldier would love to see Pierce die, is exactly what he does.

There is a man who tries to plant himself in the Soldier’s path, but he is too slow for the speed the Soldier is going for his hit to land and is still too slow to give chase, especially when Rumlow puts himself in his path. The Soldier blows past him, but he still hears what he mutters into his comms— _“Natasha, you got company headed your way, fast.”_ —and Rumlow’s low reply that ends in a laugh— _“Oh, she’s got way more than company.”_

In the counsel room, Pierce hears the crackle of Agent Romanoff’s comm, and a quiet laugh leaves his lips.

He always did think Howard’s son was more impressive than his father gave him credit for.

//

_???? - 1992_

The boy falls asleep on his mother’s couch, and he wakes up strapped to a table. He looks around, still groggy. He remembers the whiskey, remembers Obie, but beyond that and the exhaustion that hit him out of nowhere—nothing.

He squirms, straining against the cuffs keeping him down and earning nothing but bruises for his efforts. What’s going on? Why is he here? Why is he being held down?

He has what seems like a thousand questions and no one around to answer them, and the boy is thinking of yelling for help when the door swings open all on its own to reveal Alexander Pierce.

Relief floods the boy in a wave. Pierce never went away after that first dinner, and while he’s no Obie, he’s a familiar face—a friend. He even remembers him from the funeral, where he tugged the boy into an embrace that felt more sincere than most others he received at the event. “Thank God,” he breathes, the tension leaving his limbs. “I thought I was stuck here. Any chance you can help me out?” the boy asks, though he already knows the answer.

That’s why he’s startled when Pierce doesn’t move, just folds his arms and has an expression on his face the boy has known for years that looks like sympathy, except that doesn’t make sense. If he just lets him up, he won’t need to feel badly for him—not because of this, anyway.

“Pierce?” he asks, waiting.

Pierce sighs, and the boy doesn’t know why the sound feels like ice in his veins. He’s known him for ten years, there’s no reason he won’t help him—is there?

“It’s good to see you, Tony,” he says. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be kept somewhere more comfortable, but we tend to take some precautions with our investments, especially ones as expensive as you.”

Investment? But he’s a person—he can’t just be _bought._

“Quit messing around, Pierce,” the boy says, except what could possibly be the punchline to this? To the concrete walls everywhere the boy can see and the steel at his back?

Pierce tips his head to stare at him, and the boy feels like he’s seven all over again, being told why he has to leave his father’s lab early.

“It’s alright, Tony. We’ll take good care of you here, so long as you come around to our side of things.”

“Your side of things?”

Pierce smiles and talks, and as he does so, the boy learns several things that quietly shatter everything that is left of what he thought he had.

The boy learns that he may be a person, but he has already _been_ bought.

The boy learns that he was drugged and sold by the man who might as well have been his father in exchange for control of the company that bears his name and a few billion dollars.

The boy learns that he has been bought by the organization his father hated with all of his heart, and when Pierce finishes and asks if he’d like to help shape a better world, the boy spits in his face.

The boy knows he is good at talking, but the boy learns to scream.

//

_SHIELD HQ - PRESENT_

As far as the Soldier can tell, he arrives late. He sees the helicarriers start to fire on one another, and he runs faster—harder. If Pierce falls because the Soldier could not reach him, his punishment will be excruciating, but he is calmly taking his exit when the Soldier enters the room that smells like burnt flesh, gun raised.

In it, he finds a man missing an eye, Pierce, and a Widow, as promised.

He enters without much thought for stealth, and at once, three pairs of eyes swivel to him.

The Soldier evaluates them all carefully, taking stock of his surroundings, but his eyes stay on the Widow. Pierce is unarmed, as far as the Soldier goes, and the man without the eye has a gun, but the Soldier knows what to expect from a gun. He keeps his own trained on him, but his eyes constantly dart back to the Widow. The Soldier may not remember much, but he never forgets his training, even with one of the women who undoubtedly helped take him apart. 

Of his opponents, the Widow is the biggest player in the room, even obviously held hostage like she is, and the Soldier’s eyes only leave her for a moment at Pierce’s drawl. “So nice of you to join us, Soldier.”

The Widow and the one-eyed man glance at each other, and the Soldier can see her disbelief.

His eyes narrow at her, and he reads the recognition, however shocked it might be, on her face.

Did she really think Winter was the only one left of them? If so, she must’ve got a nasty shock just now.

Pierce speaks again, and the Soldier’s eyes return to him. “Lucky for you, I’ve found myself a new pilot. Soldier, if you would.”

The Soldier understands, and he stalks over to Pierce, drawing another gun as he does—one for the man, and one for the Window as he walks and then flies the person he’d love to kill most to safety.

They’re in a copter and headed away from the wreck when Pierce makes a comment that almost makes the Soldier lose his grip on the controls. “According to our intel, our Winter Soldier is nowhere to be found.” That alone is impossible and incredible all at once, the idea that Winter, deadened to the world as he is, has made it away without the Soldier’s help, but Pierce twists the knife deeper, forcing the Soldier to come to terms with where that leaves him. “That means we’ll be making the most of you, Iron, doesn’t it?” he muses.

The Soldier knows Pierce is right, but hearing him use his title makes his blood boil, makes Winter’s victory more bitter, because it’s not his to say, not anymore, not when there is a child not so far from the chaos smoldering below them who says it so much more kindly.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 10 YEARS AGO_

The fact of the matter is that the Soldier was not always the Soldier, not that he remembers being anything but. Once, he was a boy that loved to build and loved his mother even more, a boy who could play the piano and speak Italian like a lover instead of as a means to an end, but that boy is buried under years of shock and pain, and in his place is a creature that doesn’t know how to respond to the child in front of him, still just a few years old and frantically switching his brown, strangely piercing gaze from his parents to the Soldier.

The Soldier lied to the child when he said he needed to talk with his parents, but the Soldier is a very good liar, and it doesn’t matter now anyway. There were no final words before the Soldier crept behind each of the people who are now just bodies, drawing his blade across their throats in a single practiced slice. The blood is pooling beneath them—turned onto their backs so the wounds aren’t visible—and the Soldier steps in front of their prone forms so the child doesn’t have to see them anymore.

The Soldier doubts the child has ever seen death so clearly for himself, but he is not stupid and knows things have gone terribly, terribly wrong in his life regardless.

“What—why—they—” he stammers, trembling in the entrance to the kitchen as tears silently trek down his cheeks.

Was the Soldier like him, once? Did he shake at seeing someone die? He doesn’t know, but he crouches down, thinking about how he is going to clean this mess.

If the child screams and alerts the neighbors, he’ll have to die. If he tries to run and anyone sees, he’ll have to die, but right now, he is not part of the Soldier’s mission, and he is tentatively, miraculously safe.

“Peter,” the Soldier begins, “I know this is hard, but you have to listen to me. Can you do that?”

“I—I—”

He continues despite the child’s horror, calm, measured. “When I leave, you’re going to go find a neighbor. Doesn’t matter which one. You’re going to tell them what happened to your parents, and no matter who asks you, you can’t say anything about seeing me, got it?”

“But—”

“If you say you saw me, I’ll come back and kill you too.”

The Soldier won’t have a choice.

The child whimpers, stumbling away from the Soldier, who brushes past him. He thinks about touching his shoulder, offering him some comfort, but the Soldier thinks of how he hates the touches of his handlers and thinks better of it. Instead, he returns to the window he came in, closes it, and leaves through the one in his parents’ room.

Making his way back down the sheer brick drop, the Soldier attributes his own non-compliance to the desire to savor what rebellion he can and doesn’t have the presence of mind to process the tickle at the back of his consciousness that realizes the scene he left in his wake holds eerie similarities to something a boy the Soldier might’ve once known went through.

The Soldier takes everything from the child in one fell swoop, save for his life, and he will never know how the child screams when he manages to find his voice.

Not that early on, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

_HYDRA BASE - 10 YEARS AGO_  


The Soldier is never rewarded for a job well done. It is a given that he will succeed and it is treated as such. The Soldier’s two options are success or punishment, and though the Soldier dislikes a beating as much as anyone, he doesn’t hate them nearly as much as he hates a wipe, and he doesn’t hate a wipe as much as he hates being put on ice. But the mission went off without a hitch, as far as his handlers know, and the most he is given for the loss of his muzzle is a punch on the jaw and an exasperated sigh before he’s escorted back to his quarters.

The Soldier has his weapons taken from him once he reenters the base, but he keeps the rest of his clothes that then end up in a pile so that he can get in the shower. The water slides down his skin, wiping away the blood and sweat crusted onto him after the day, and the Soldier takes a breath in before cleaning around his battery.

It’s excruciating, as always, the jostling of tissue and wounds that will never be left alone long enough to scar, but pain is an old friend to the Soldier, who would rather a few moments of discomfort than allow the doctors to get their greedy, curious hands on him in the case of an infection.

So the Soldier bathes himself, gritting his teeth against the pain, and when he is done, he dresses, minus the extra vest he wears on missions to cover up the light.

He is planning on sleeping when his handler tosses open the door to his room, panting. The Soldier stops on instinct, waiting for orders, but when they come, they’re frazzled, out of breath. “Come with me, now,” his handler snaps, trying to straighten up and smooth his hair that’s fallen out of place in what must have been a sprint across base. The Soldier complies, wondering what has his handler—not as cruel as he could be, but vicious nonetheless—so worked up. The man mutters to himself the whole way to wherever he’s leading him, and just outside the door, he yanks him down by the collar of his shirt.

The Soldier would bend if he only asked, but he supposes that’s not the point. Most of his handlers seem to enjoy the thrill of knowing they have a beast under their control.

“If you make me look bad,” his handler growls, his watery green eyes locked into the depths of the Soldier’s dark pair, “I will yank that shit out of your chest and leave you to choke, got it?”

This handler may not be the worst he’s ever had, but he is still the Soldier’s handler.

The Soldier is rarely expected to respond, and this is just the same. Any words he might have to say have been locked back up after the mission with the child, and that’s just how they like him. His handler pulls away and leads him through the door, and the Soldier understands his fear immediately. Whereas before he enjoyed it, his pleasure is dulled by the face he knows staring back at him.

“Good day, Agent,” Pierce greets his handler. “I hope you don’t mind—I just wanted to check in on our Soldier, here.”

The Soldier wants to rip his throat out with his bare hands. He lacks specifics, but the memory of his smile dances through his head, mixed with blinding pain and the desire to make everything _stop_.

The Soldier shifts on his feet. He lacks his mask, but his closed lips hide his gritted teeth all the same.

“Performing as usual, sir. He came back today from an assignment in the city.”

“And?” Pierce asks, though his eyes don’t leave the Soldier, and in particular, the light.

“It was successful, sir.”

Pierce nods, taking a step closer. “And how long has it been since his last wipe?”

“Just a few weeks, sir.”

Pierce lets out a low hum, and the Soldier already knows what will come of it.

“For that one, it’s enough. Restart him.”

His handler dips his head. “Of course, sir.”

The Soldier is led from the room, and when the ensuing electric agony clears, he is left with an image that is new and strange, that he holds close because he is numb but he still knows he is not supposed to have anything after the chair.

The Soldier remembers young, tear-filled eyes and wonders where in the world they came from.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

The Soldier has been taught that order comes through pain, but looking around, looking at this—

This is chaos.

Pierce is swarmed as soon as they touch down, and the Soldier allows it. His orders were to get to him, and he did. He even saved him, though the Soldier would pay to see him suffer, and now that he’s back at base, he’ll take his chances with any stray agents that might be SHIELD-aligned.

 _Winter is gone, Winter is gone, Winter is gone_ , the Soldier thinks, and he can’t explain why that creates such panic in his chest, makes him want to scream. He didn’t help him this time—he won’t be punished. He _did_ his job—Pierce would’ve been dead without him—so why is there something in his throat that makes it hard to breathe?  
  


The Soldier sees his handler approaching him, and it comes to him with a start.

He’s been left behind, hasn’t he?

Before now, the Soldier didn’t realize the comfort in knowing there was another person out there like him, operating on the same wavelength, from the same source of orders. The Widows have been killed or have escaped, Winter is loose, and now, it’s just him, and the Soldier thought he was past feeling like this, past feeling anything at all beyond the desire to see the world as he knows it burn at his hands, but he thinks he knows, now, what it is that’s wrong.

The Soldier is suddenly, cripplingly lonely, even as he hears his handler speak with Pierce.

“Sir, is the Soldier under control?” she asks, and of course she would. Even she and her ruthless grin deviate to Pierce, and he keeps walking into the base, unperturbed.

“He got me here, didn’t he?” he replies, waving a hand, as if her concerns are ridiculous.

As if the Soldier, if left alone for long enough, couldn’t stake the same control he has over his mind on his body.

As if he hasn’t done it before and isn’t itching to do it again.

“Escort him back to his cell, but don’t give him permission to bathe or sleep. He’ll be needed soon,” Pierce promises, and then he is conversing with men dressed in black who look at Pierce like he’s a viper about to strike, and his handler is leading the Soldier back to his room.

_Is the Soldier under control?_

The Soldier moves obediently and wishes he could prove Pierce wrong.

//

_???? - ????_

How long has the boy screamed?

How long has it been?

He tells Pierce no, and he says he’s sorry he feels that way. And then there come men with needles, who dig under his skin despite his spitting and kicking and turn his veins to fire.

The boy _howls_ , sheds more tears than he thought he had left after the accident, and when the flames are doused, Pierce asks him again.

The boy says something along the lines of _“go to hell, you fucking asshole”_ , and Pierce sighs and tells him he’s too stubborn for his own good. There comes beatings and hunger and thirst and more of the fire and every combination of it all, and still, the boy says _“no, never”_ —says _“no”_ — says _“no, please just let me go.”_

The question doesn’t always sound the same. Sometimes, it’s asking if he’d like a drink, so long as he’ll build something for them. Sometimes, it’s promising they have food if he’d like to hack into somewhere their technicians can’t reach. And sometimes, it’s as plain as the boy always hears it—“Are you ready to join us?”

And in his moments of weakness, the boy, the battered, bloody, boy, wonders if it would be so bad to just have it _stop_ before he remembers that he is someone they’re trying to keep.

What does that mean for those HYDRA has decided to throw away?

Such is the terrible curiosity that keeps him strong, and when HYDRA sees after a particularly grueling round of their method of persuasion that there will be no bringing him around, they change the question into something much simpler.

HYDRA is flexible. If the boy will not bend as he is, they will make him into something better.

The boy is introduced to the chair, and though the day when the boy became a man is long past, he is too focused on remembering that he is _Tony_ to care.

“What is your name?” the woman controlling the head clamps asks.

“Tony Stark,” he spits, gasping for breath past the tears still slipping down his cheeks.

And again, after a month he doesn’t realize has passed—

“What is your name?” the man controlling the head clamps asks.

“Tony—Tony Stark,” he pants, tears run dry but body throbbing with pain.

And again, after six—

“What is your name?” a voice asks as it has for so long now, coming somewhere from the world outside his pounding head.

A pause. He has to think, but some of it comes back to him. “Tony,” he manages, knowing he’s missing something but unable to think of what it could be.

And finally, after a year—

“What is your name?”

There is no response.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

The Soldier has been moved to a more secure location, somewhere unrecorded, even to the logs the Widow takes the liberty of leaving open for all to see.

The Widow has spilled more than SHIELD or HYDRA wants public onto the internet with what files she could find, and though they sit the Soldier in front of a computer and leave him to do damage control, there is only so much he can mend in the face of the enormity of what the Widow’s done.

It’s powerful, but it’s not contained. The Widow— _that_ Widow in particular—has never moved with the intent of barrelling through anything in her way. That is more of Winter’s game, whereas she is neat stings and clean death. This is sloppy, glaringly crude in ways she is not, and the Soldier intuits as a result that she was taken by surprise, backed into a corner and forced to make do with the options available to her.

It still leaves him in a bind and works Pierce into a fervor.

“Sir, if we push him too far, we could lose his intelligence trying to get him to blindly follow orders. We have no one else on his skill level, and especially with the data dump—”

The Soldier hears crashing, things being knocked around, but his view is limited from where he’s strapped down.

“All we have left is the Star, doctor,” Pierce seethes. “We kept him under the radar. We somehow kept his files from the goddamn dump, and now it’s his turn to pick up where the Asset left off.”

The Star. It’s a nice name, prettier than the Asset, certainly, but it’s not truly what the Soldier is, only what he is starting to realize he is expected to become, though he has had the title long before Winter ran and left him to be used to put HYDRA back together.

“But he’s perfectly usable while in his current state!”

“And that’s what we thought about the Asset.” 

The Soldier hears a yelp, and he can imagine Pierce’s hands in the doctor’s coat, bringing him closer than he wants to be. Pierce doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, but he will, provided he gets angry enough. Such information appears naturally to the Soldier. Certain things that pertain to his survival always do, no matter how many times they put his brain on the fritz.

“I don’t need another Soldier running off on me, doctor.” Every word is laced with venom, and the Soldier imagines Pierce letting go at the sigh that follows, trying to bring himself back under control. “Wipe him, and when he’s ready, give me a call.”

The Soldier hears Pierce storm out, and after a few minutes, a familiar crackling. He bites down on the guard in his mouth and braces for impact.

//

_???? - ????_

Men appear when he is asked the question he doesn’t know the answer to, unlocking his shackles. He rubs his wrists, and they lead him to a cell. He does not complain.

He sits on a cot one of them arranges him on, and when they give him food, he eats. It is not good, but he is hungry. Then comes water, tasting a bit like metal, but he is thirsty. When that is gone, he sits, alone, waiting.

For what, he doesn’t know. Does it matter? Even if it does, he doesn’t care. The world is blurry, and there is nothing but static between his ears.

Eventually, someone comes, telling him to stand, to follow. He listens, shuffling obediently after them when they leave the cell. He is seated again in front of a man dressed in black, who he immediately thinks of as a threat.

The set of his arms, the clench of his jaw—it has a certain harshness to it, like the pain of looking into a bright light for too long.

He keeps his eyes on the table between them instinctively, but the man speaks. “Hello, Soldier,” the man greets, but he does not feel welcome. He keeps his gaze down, but the man has orders too. “Look at me when I talk to you,” he commands.

The world is hazy, but the words are clear.

He lifts his head as asked, and the man nods in what must be approval. “Good. How are you feeling, Soldier?”

There’s that term again. Is that him? Is he Soldier? He has nothing to call himself, but the man seems to know what’s going on—he can see the eyes of everyone in the room on him. Does that mean he’s the one to obey? But he asked him a question—he didn’t provide any instructions to follow.

His brow wrinkles in confusion. Does he even know a word for the emptiness he wallows in, the nothingness he’s barely been pulled from?

The man laughs, but he sees nothing funny. “It’s to be expected, I suppose. You haven’t had anyone talk with you in a long time, though I’m told you have plenty to say.”

Does he? How do these people know him when he doesn’t even know himself?

The man leans forward. “We’ll fix that though, don’t worry.” The man motions a guard over, and he blinks in surprise as they latch something over his mouth. He tries to recoil from the unexpected touch and receives a smack on the back of his head for his attempt. When the guard draws back, the thing is locked in place, and the man nods again. “That’s a start. Look at me,” the man demands, and as if pulled by something outside of himself, he listens. “I am your handler. You are the Soldier and the Star. Anything I ask, you do efficiently and without complaint. Am I clear, Soldier?”

The Soldier, very obviously not supposed to speak, dips his head in confirmation.

In the coming days, the Soldier will learn that his world, which comes into focus as his mind begins to stir once more, is breakable, made so by drugs they pumped into him while he was being created.

In the coming weeks, he’ll begin his training with agents of all shapes and sizes, agents who delight in knocking him down and making him bleed as he tries to master the coltish strength in his body, and he’ll learn that he hates all of them and hates disposing of the people they put in front of him when they think he is ready even more.

In the coming months, his handler will show himself to be increasingly more despicable, and by the end of the fifth, he’ll be dead, killed at the Soldier’s hands using a maneuver he learned a few days prior.

Past the punishment he receives for it, the attempt at rebellion becomes a joke to the agents. 

The fact of the matter is that once he accepts what he is, the Soldier never ceases to surface from his latest wipe as a form that dances to the whims of his handler but has fire in his eyes, and they jeer at him, watching him circumvent his orders as best as he can until they murmur a string of words that force him to obey to the letter.

“The Soldier with the iron will,” they tease him, in the ring, in the lab, even walking him to his duties. In the beginning, nearly all of them know who he was and who he was supposed to be, and though the novelty of having a billionaire's son under their boots wears off over time, the taunt stays, condensing until he is the Iron Soldier both amongst the agents and on paper, younger and burning brighter than the Asset but just as easy to forge into a weapon. After all, the Iron Soldier may be smarter than anyone who gives him orders, but when the blacksmith’s hammer comes down on his neck, all he can do is submit.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

The Soldier is dressed, strapped with his weapons, and sent out for assignments.

He does not know when he sleeps or eats. Maybe he doesn’t. The image of his cell, once familiar, becomes muddied with electricity and a set of words, hammered into him at every turn.

When he’s first given a mission— _gilded, revolution, two_ —when he leaves— _exchange, titanium, nineteen_ —and even when he returns— _seven, rise, trinket, conductor._

The Soldier has discovered how they work long ago, but sometimes he forgets the words that turn him into nothing, into a beast as numb as his appearance would have one believe.

The wipes make him forget and make him compliant, but the words scrape out everything except what is needed for the mission, including the brilliance HYDRA paid billions to have for themselves. They normally keep him fully functional, but when the Soldier makes the mistake of informing them he’s done everything in his power to control the dump and obscure HYDRA’s remaining facilities, his superiors decide that they need a weapon more than a genius.

The Soldier remembers very little of however long passes, only the motions that keep coming up until they’re seared into his mind just as clearly as the words that guarantee they’re the only thing that matters: a press of a trigger, the flick of a blade, even the feeling of a grenade’s pin in his fingers. 

The Soldier remembers when the world starts to feel tangible again even less.

True, his superiors are frantic, but the Soldier has been a good little lap dog since Winter made a break for it and appeased them with an ever growing pile of bodies. He’s pliant, and men with power love seeing it respected. Pierce and the men like him start looking outside of their control instead of in, and as the words and the chair are used less and less, the Soldier still obeys.

It’s in his best interest to keep everyone’s eyes off him, and he makes sure it stays that way until he gets the chance to find what, or rather, _who_ he’s looking for.

//

_HYDRA BASE - ????_

The Soldier has known nearly since his inception that he’s not alone. He knows he’s not the original model or even the best one, but he finds there is a difference between the Soldier with the shining arm and the other four.

For one, the Soldier with the prosthetic, though cold, does not look at him like the other four do—with malice.

His handler laughs over his shoulder, whispering what would be low enough for just the two of them to hear if the other Soldiers didn’t have ears as good as his. “You’re in for a rough ride, Iron. You weren’t supposed to be number six, and they miss the man who was in line for your spot.”

The Soldier doesn’t know what that means, but it certainly explains the way they throw him down and nearly kill him a dozen times, only stopped by the cocking guns of the handlers lining the walls. He’s smaller than the rest too, not as smooth in his actions.

It occurs to the Soldier that the grace of the set of four comes from moving like fighting is something they enjoy. 

For the one with the arm, it appears as though fighting is the only thing he knows how to do.

When he’s lost a match for the umpteenth time, a knife less than an inch from his throat before his attacker—one of the four—is pulled off him, his handler orders him to the side, where he tosses a rifle, more complex than standard, at him with a sneer. “Take it apart and put it back together,” he snaps.

The order does not make sense, and for a moment, the Soldier balks. The Soldier should still be sparring—there’s one of the four left without a partner due to his handler’s intervention—but when he takes too long to comply, he receives a backhand hard enough to make spots dance before his eyes. “I said _do it,”_ his handler hisses, a touch too fast, and the Soldier understands.

His handler has no issue seeing him beaten to a pulp, but he didn’t realize at the beginning of the day that his Soldier’s failure would make him look weak too. This is to make up for it.

The Soldier doesn’t even spare him a nod. He wants to show off? Fine.

His deft hands descend on the rifle, and in a matter of seconds, it is in pieces. The Soldier looks up long enough to be sure his handler has seen all of the parts on the ground, and then it flies back together as easily as it came apart. The Soldier hands it back to him, eyes narrowed at the insult of a being given a task so simple.

His handler is appeased, and the Soldier returns to the matches, all of which he loses.

The Soldier can fight but not against his fellow Soldiers, no matter how easily he memorizes and tries to mimic their strong, brusque movements. It is not until someone has the idea of putting him with the Widows’ trainer, who excels in making weapons out of those smaller than their opponents, that he becomes his most dangerous.

It is one thing to be able to bludgeon an adversary into submission. In fact, the Soldier is very skilled at that when not put against someone who has the same steel as him in their veins. It is another to slip willingly into their reach and know victory will come regardless.

The Soldier learns both methods, and when he faces his own breed again, he enjoys blowing the confidence off their smug faces—all except for the one with the silver arm.

That one looks like he expected him all along, and he is the only opponent the Soldier can’t manage to take down.

The challenge would be fun if it didn’t mean he’d be at his handler’s mercy later.

//

_BUCHAREST - PRESENT_

The longer they leave him untouched, the more the Soldier remembers, so he’s not particularly surprised to have hunted Winter to Europe. 

Winter fit better in Romania, blending in as seamlessly as he ever did. It was the Soldier that stuck out, back when they were allowed to work together, but the Soldier is expected to wear a muzzle constantly now for a reason, a reason that aligns startlingly well with his current one for being in the city.

It has taken time for the Soldier to remember, but the streets he once knew affirm it: the last time they were in Bucharest, the Soldier came up with a plan for the two of them to escape, and Winter listened. 

The Soldier has always been muzzled more frequently than the others, but it makes sense then, that after that, HYDRA permanently decided the Soldier did his best work without a voice.

It took time for a mission to come up in the area, but the Soldier has nothing but time on his hands, figuratively speaking. Literally, he has just as many weapons as normal hidden under the civilian clothes he’s stolen for this part of his work in the city. His orders were to find and eliminate a weapons dealer that’s double-crossed HYDRA, which he has—almost.

He’s tied up in a warehouse a few miles away, but the Soldier will take care of that after this.

The Soldier starts up the stairs to the apartment building. It’s a good choice, in a fairly quiet neighborhood, and the creaking of the climb up to Winter’s floor would give plenty of warning if a whole team was closing in. However, the Soldier is not a team, and the Soldier knows how to be quiet, even with the bag under his arm carrying everything he normally has on that would let everyone with a brain know that he’s not normal—including his mask.

The Soldier raises a hand when he reaches the right number and knocks once, twice, three times.

Winter opens it in pajama pants and an old t-shirt and looks like he’s been shot when the Soldier raises a hand in a wave.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 10 YEARS AGO_

Four years old, Peter Parker has seen his parents buried several months ago, but he still wakes up screaming. On those nights, his aunt and his uncle come into his room and hold him close and listen to him blabber, though he feels like a baby for doing so.

He remembers the metallic smell of the kitchen, the puddles his parents made on the linoleum, and how sore his throat was because even when the policemen bust the door in, he couldn’t stop _screaming._

On the nights where he can’t sleep at all, Peter wonders if the man will come back because he’ll discover that Peter didn’t listen.

The man said to _find_ the neighbors, to tell them that something was wrong, but Peter couldn’t. The kitchen stank and his parents weren’t moving and all he could do was yell until his neighbors, who pleaded with him to open the door, got in because the police said he had to go with someone until they could find out who to call to come get him.

Peter messed up, but he doesn’t ruin everything. He didn’t tell on the man, not even when they asked him a million times over if he saw anything that might explain what happened.

“I don’t know,” he whispered over and over, and then he cried, and his aunt told them to leave him alone, sounding meaner than she’s ever been to Peter.

On the nights where he can’t sleep at all, Peter is scared, thinking of if it hurt when his parents died, thinking of how terrified he is that if the man comes back, he’ll make him hurt too.

The police got him out of the apartment fast, and though they searched it—Peter _knows_ they searched it because he wanted his toys but his aunt and his uncle said he couldn’t have them until they were done—the mask is where Peter left it before he wandered out to the kitchen, tired of being patient and wanting to see more of the man who appeared in his window and moved more quietly than anyone he’d seen before. He pulled it from the depths of his toy basket, buried deep because it was so _cool_ —he didn’t want the man to remember to take it when he left.

On the nights where he can’t sleep at all, Peter fetches the mask from the spot he’s found for it in the very far corner under his bed to be sure the man wasn’t a dream. He turns it over in his tiny, trembling hands and wishes he’d shouted, said anything so that when the man slipped out of his room, Peter wouldn’t have followed him and found his parents on the ground. The mask always makes him think, and when he does, he has questions.

Why was the man there? Why did he do it? Why him?

He receives no answers and believes he never will.

On the nights where he can’t sleep at all, Peter has tears drying on his cheeks by the time the sun comes up, but he always looks out to see it rise over the city, losing himself in moments where he doesn’t miss his old life so much looking at the way brick glows orange in the morning or how yellow streaks the sky.

And on one of the nights where Peter can’t sleep at all, the Soldier stares at the sad, oblivious face in the window from his perch a few rooftops away, confirming to his foggy memory that the eyes that came to him when nothing should’ve belong to the remnant of his last mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the backstory thickens lmao. For those of you interested in more of Tony and Peter’s backstory/relationship, it’s coming!! I just gotta get through Tony’s first, which will take us until chapter three, and then chapter four goes _ham_. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left a kudos or comment on the first chapter! Fanfic feels a little like screaming into the void sometimes, especially with Ao3’s (completely understandable!!) change in logging hits as of late, so it’s always nice to hear the void scream back and say it’s interested. Comments really do mean the world to me!
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and I hope chapter two measures up to the first!


	3. Chapter 3

_BUCHAREST - PRESENT_  


Winter drags him inside by the collar of his shirt, slamming the door, and the Soldier lets him. Winter releases him quickly too, wringing his hand as though scalded, and his voice is low, angry, more of a hiss than anything. “What the _hell_ are you doing here?” he asks, and granted, the Soldier hasn’t been in a building with blinds in a very long time, but he’s not sure he’s ever seen someone pull them as fast as Winter does.

“I can’t say hi?” the Soldier asks, and he hadn’t realized how much he missed being able to just say what comes to mind until then.

Winter turns around, icy fury in the blue of his eyes as he jabs a finger threateningly at the Soldier. “Don’t fucking mess around,” he seethes.

The Soldier knows he should skip goading him on and just get to the point, but he loves this, poking fun. There’s only one other person he can do this with, and he won’t be seeing them for a long, long time yet.

For fairly obvious reasons, HYDRA is avoiding the states at the moment.

“Re- _lax_ ,” he replies, strolling around the space. It’s a little small, a little musty-smelling, but the Soldier doesn’t know who he is to judge. He lives in a cell that’s half the size of the place, but unreasonably, something in him turns its nose up at the accommodations. Well, no matter. Lots of things have been coming back with them leaving him alone—as much as HYDRA ever leaves him alone, anyway. “It’s not like you’re the one with a terrorist organization up your ass. Besides, I’m alone. They don’t know I’m here.”

Winter grabs his arm, yanking the Soldier around to look at him. If the Soldier didn’t know him, he might say he was going to punch him, but he does, and he isn’t. Winter’s just sizing him up, albeit aggressively, which is fair. The Soldier would probably do the same thing if he was the one to escape, and Winter finishes soon enough. The Soldier’s lip twitches up.

There are worse things in the world than a peeved Winter, and the Soldier knows them intimately.

Winter lets go, and the Soldier flops back onto the couch. He thinks it’ll feel nice, but no. It’s too soft, almost suffocatingly so, and he gets back up, some of the amusement leaked out of his expression at the realization. 

The Soldier has a reason for coming, but it feels bizarre, if liberating, to be acting without orders, so he allows Winter to speak and, in doing so, takes a moment to center himself.

“You’re still with them?”

It’s not an unreasonable question, but for some reason, it grates on the Soldier just so.

“Yeah, well not all of us are lucky enough to fall into the Potomac,” he snaps. No one has bothered to rehash the fight with the Soldier, but his memory is getting better with each day that passes. It’s only logical that Winter fell into the river. He was on the helicarriers, he fell, and HYDRA is made up of people who say they serve a greater cause but aren’t very keen on risking their own skin for it. Nobody cared to dive into the debris for the missing Soldier—especially not when they had one left to use instead.

Winter doesn’t look upset by the reply. If anything, he looks at the Soldier with something he thinks is pity, and that’s worse. The Soldier turns away before he can get too worked up, running his hand along one of the cushions on the couch.

“I have to be fast,” he says, crushing the bitterness welling up within him underfoot. “Good for you for getting out, really. You picked a good time. They’re busy being worried about themselves—don’t have the time to chase runaways when they still have someone left to do the dirty work.”

“They’re still active?”  
  


The Soldier nods. “Pissed, recovering, but of course. They’re keeping most operations overseas right now.”

“And you?”

The Soldier glances up from the cushion, taking in Winter’s crossed arms, the guarded look he sees past in a second. He shrugs. “I’m being a Soldier.”

He checks the clock hanging on the wall, sees the time. The weapons dealer should be waking up within the hour, and the Soldier needs to get going, besides. He looks to Winter. “I need a favor,” he tells him.

He’s not asking.

Winter _owes_ him. He doesn’t know the last time he slept, the last time he ate. He’s been busy doing double the work and being as numb as both of them combined, and the fact remains that Winter is free and the Soldier is not. After their years together, after the years of silence once it was decided they had to be apart because the Soldier took a chance on him, it’s not too much to ask.

“I need you to check on a kid. Go there yourself, hack the camera feed on his street—whatever. Make sure he’s alright—aunt and uncle are treating him okay, nobody’s messing with him, stuff like that. And if something is wrong, fix it. I would, but, you know, terrorist organization up my ass.” He flashes a wry smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, quoting himself from earlier.

Winter’s brows raise, and the Soldier sees a notebook sitting on the counter with a pen. He pushes past him, ignoring the sigh he hears that lets him know Winter would really _prefer_ he didn’t touch his things but doesn’t care enough to pick a fight over it. The Soldier flips through to the next empty page and scrawls an address, a name. It’s in code, but Winter is smart, and more importantly, the Soldier taught it to him awhile back. He might have to do some deep thinking for it, but the Soldier doubts he’s forgotten.

He shuts the notebook, sets the pen down on top of it.

Part of him says he has no right to intrude like this, to bring HYDRA crashing down on Winter if they discover what he’s done, but the Soldier has thought of that and has done his best to make sure it won’t be him that gives Winter away. Letting HYDRA know of his interests in New York would be worse by far.

It’s less risky this way. The Soldier is getting more leeway, but with no plans to return to America in sight, he doesn’t have a prayer of reaching the city. Winter is already under the radar—it won’t be too hard for him to do what he’s asking.

Besides, Winter knows how to run. If HYDRA finds Peter, he doesn’t stand a chance.

He backs away from the notebook, looking to Winter, whose face says he has a thousand questions but who has the decency to ask none of them, and at Winter’s side, the flash of silver the Soldier knows so well catches his eye.

The Soldier really should be going, but he’s always been fascinated by Winter’s arm, and maybe the task he’s asked of him isn’t as small as he’s acting like it is.

He sighs and decides the man in the warehouse can wait a little longer.

“I don’t suppose you have a toolbox?” he asks, and Winter cracks what might be a smile.

//

_HYDRA BASE - ????_

The Soldier learns to fight, and when he is not, he is building.

His handlers tell him what they want, and the Soldier knows how to deliver before they’ve even finished. He tells him what he needs, and once he has it, he brings the instruments they desire to life underneath his skilled hands.

His handler says something about it, once, to the guards that tend to file in as the Soldier works.

 _“You can make anybody a killer, but_ that _is all him.”_

The Soldier’s fingers tighten on the piece he’s handling, and when it crumbles under the pressure, he reaches for another as though nothing is wrong.  
  


There is something familiar in the rhythm of the workshop, a natural order in the way the Soldier knows things have to be done to accomplish his final product that doesn’t exist in the ring with the others. In a fight, the Soldier is nothing more than what they made him—a machine made to destroy. On his own, he is concentration and the desire to create, and they even allow him to keep his hair short when he informs them that it gets in the way when he’s working, a luxury others aren’t afforded. Even if the Soldier is told to work on the one they call Winter, the lab provides a rare moment where he can allow himself to forget that he’s operating without a real say in his work, and the Soldier cherishes it.

But not as much as he cherishes what it brings him.

The Soldier knows he is not working for any great cause, no matter how the man who appears rarely but the Soldier hates most spins his grandiose lie. If what he did was great, there would be great men that made him, but the Soldier has only known a revolving door of cruel, cowardly faces, some of which he has had the pleasure of snuffing out, and some of which survive the hatred simmering below his placid facade to do more cruel, cowardly things. His body may betray him, other bodies may pile up, but his mind races and hates those men and what they stand for. 

The Soldier knows he has forgotten plenty, but he remembers to rebel, that he does not want to be kept.

One day, they make the mistake of asking the Soldier to build a bomb.

The bomb itself is easy, and so is tossing it at his handler and the agents at her side. It is even easier to pick up one of their rifles for himself and tear through the halls of the base, moving as fast as his legs will carry him. It is easy up until the end, when agents are closing in on him at all sides and the Soldier fires and _fights_ like they’ve taught him because he wants to be free like a dying man craves air.

The hard part comes when someone tosses a grenade the Soldier’s way and he doesn’t have anywhere to run.

The grenade detonates, and before it reaches the Soldier, it reaches the gun he’s holding near his chest.

Trying is easy. The hard part comes when the Soldier fails.

//

_BUCHAREST - PRESENT_

The dealer is a shaky, narrow-faced man who cracks very easily under the Soldier’s interrogation. He has a knife in his arm and another in his leg, and he’s already squealed all the names the Soldier has been sent to fetch.

It’s a little pathetic, but the Soldier guesses running a trustworthy business doesn’t matter much if you’re going to get killed over some secrecy.

He ends up dead anyway, but the Soldier supposes all kinds of men will hold out hope until the end.

He removes his blades from his skin, wipes off the blood on the dead man’s clothes, and thinks about what Winter asked while he was bent over his arm.

_“If you have the control to come see me, why don’t you run?”_

The Soldier had paused, wiping the sweat off his brow and looking at the red star set into the prosthetic instead of meeting his eyes when he replied. “I have a long leash, but I still have a collar—I can wander off the path, but I can’t bolt.” He leaned a little closer into the arm, unplugging a cord in his way. He did maintenance, true, but he also made a thousand tiny changes HYDRA would never allow—letting him feel temperature, dulling its pain receptors. “You know how it is.”

Winter’s response was blunt and made something in the Soldier snag.

“No, I don’t. You were the only one of us who knew enough about what was going on to fight it.”

And he’s the one still under lock and key.

The conversation left a foul taste in the Soldier’s mouth for him to return to the weapons dealer with, and it shows on his corpse, bloodied far more than the Soldier needed for a man willing to give up everything to save himself.

The Soldier puts his knives away, doing his best to banish the thought of Winter, and he changes back into the clothes HYDRA expects him in.

With Winter taking care of Peter, the Soldier has his most pressing concerns taken care of. He begins the walk to the train station, which will take him to his rendezvous point, and as he does so, his light begins to ache.

//

_HYDRA BASE - ????_

When the Soldier wakes, the first thing that hits him is the cold. It is overwhelming, so fierce it makes him feel like he has been hollowed out for the ice he feels to fit inside him, become a part of him, and when he tries to move to warm himself, only to be stopped by the strap pinning each of his limbs to the table, he is unable to hold back a gasp at the brittleness of his bones, as if they might splinter entirely under pressure.

The second thing is the pain. The Soldier is no stranger to it, but this is different from the all-over throbbing of a beating, even the wicked agony of the chair. This is nauseating and blinding, and the Soldier can’t fathom what could possibly be the cause of something so violently different than any suffering he has been through before. He tries to look, find an explanation for the only thing other than the chair that has made him want to scream for as long as he can recall, but there’s a band around his neck too. The Soldier’s chest heaves, his hands scrabble at the table, and he wants to gag but finds his body too cold to do what he asks of it.

The Soldier’s lungs struggle to take in air that is painful in its slide down his throat, and in the distance, he can hear someone speak— _“He’s awake, sir.”_

The Soldier hears a door slam, and a man comes to stand over him who looks _displeased_ , to say the least.

The Soldier is used to anger. From his handlers, when he does poorly in training. From the Soldiers that are not Winter, always burning in their frigid faces. From the guards he spars with when the Soldiers or a Widow isn’t available and abuses to the best of his ability.

This man, who has no weapons the Soldier can see as he stares at his suit, might scare him more than any of them.

The Soldier has no memory of him that he can recall, but he has learned by now to trust what his gut says, that even if he doesn’t explicitly remember something, some instinct in the back of his mind does.

The sight of the man feels like talons raking down his spine. The Soldier feels that is plenty of indication of what he should be aware of at the moment.

The man is staring, and the Soldier stares back, uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable he is in his predicament. And at last, the man speaks. “The doctors tell me you’re not going to be talking for a little while longer while your fine motor control comes back, so I’d get comfortable.” His hand—wrinkled, a little dry from what the Soldier can see of it—lands on his chest. It doesn’t push down, but the pressure alone makes the Soldier suck in a breath. The man’s lips quirk in the barest hint of a smile, and then he draws away. “Still sore, I see. You’re lucky you survived that little display—the shrapnel from the rifle went straight into your chest. We had to put you on ice to slow your heart rate enough for us to fix you up.” The manacles keeping him down snap open without warning. “Why don’t you take a look?”

The Soldier hates obeying, but he’s curious. He remembers snippets of what the man is talking about, but he wants to _know._ The Soldier runs on what his mind is or isn’t capable of, and the blind spot he has concerning his own body is maddening.

Sitting up is a process of gritted teeth and heavy breathing, but the cold is turning from piercing to a simple ache the longer the Soldier is awake. When he finally maneuvers himself to an angle where he can see, the Soldier doesn’t understand. Wires sprout from his chest, coming from a plate in his sternum and leading to a box—but that can’t be right. The Soldier is a monster, but he’s a monster made of flesh and bone. He is the one who makes machines run, not the other way around, but when he prods at the contraption, the pain is undeniably real.

The Soldier, for once, has nothing to say, even if he wouldn’t be punished for opening his mouth. Instead, he glances back to the man for direction, though doing so makes his skin crawl.

The man is smiling fully now, and if the Soldier wasn’t trying not to scream, he might lash out. He leans forward, staring the Soldier in the eyes. Unlike his handlers, he doesn’t try to keep any extra space between them, and that tells the Soldier that, for whatever reason, this man believes he has control over him. He doesn’t have long to think on it before the man speaks again.

“You made us be creative, Soldier, but as you know, we have no room for weakness, and that includes a Soldier chained to a battery.” The man presses papers down in front of the Soldier that he immediately pores over with clumsy, frosty fingers, finding that they show what’s been done to him, but if that’s unacceptable—

“You’re going to need to put yourself back into working order, Soldier, or you’ll be eliminated.”

The Soldier understands, and after a week, he shoves a blue light into his chest to replace the crude work of HYDRA’s doctors. When they ask, he merely says it’s a battery, and when they tell him to make another one, well, it’s not like they can take the one in his chest out to see how pathetic the version he gives them is in comparison.

The Soldier’s chest _hurts_ , but like with all forms of torture he goes through, the Soldier learns to cope. He stops letting it hinder him during fights, and he stops screaming when his opponents hit it dead-on.

The Soldier has no other option but to endure, and if he finds having a defect like Winter that helps set him apart from the other four strangely comforting, the thought never leaves his head.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

The Soldier returns to base with little fanfare, just the usual weapons deposit. However, instead of being escorted to his cell like he expects—and would appreciate, frankly, if only for a shower—his handler turns a corner that makes dread settle into the Soldier’s bones.

He hasn’t seen the other Soldiers since Winter left, but they’re never friendly faces.

The Soldier figured out almost immediately that he and Winter were different from them, but it’s not until his handler mentions it to one of the guards that he fully understands that while he and Winter were dragged to the task, the four of them were willing participants.

The Soldier’s lost sleep over the thought of that, which is annoying for more than one reason, the most prevalent being that he hates them too much to want to spend any more time than he has to with them in his head.

He can understand wanting power. The Soldier himself has wanted the power to escape for longer than he can remember, but the abilities that come with being a Soldier are different.

Did they— _do_ they not see the inhumanity in aging slower than what’s natural? Do they not care that their bodies are built to take pain that would kill a normal human and come out fighting? Do they not feel some level of revulsion at their skin that knits itself back together with hardly a scar to show for it? Even if they don’t, how could they submit to become what they are of their own volition—to know the path, already twisted, to their strength comes at the price of so many lives?

The Soldier doesn’t shrink at the idea of having to kill anymore, not when he’s had long enough for the faces of his victims to blur into a constant but inevitable stream of cold skin and empty eyes, but it is nothing he enjoys.

Not when they don’t deserve it, anyway.

So no, he doesn’t like seeing the others, but his handler is leading him to the room they use for fights, and the Soldier supposes he’ll just have to suck it up.

On the walk there, he reviews what he remembers of them: the woman is strong but bides her time, one of the men always tries to hit his light, the bald one likes to have his fun with knives—

When they get there, the four apparently haven’t arrived. That’s just fine, in the Soldier’s opinion, and if he’s waiting, that’s more time not taking care of whatever nasty business his superiors have thought up.

As the minutes start to tick by, the Soldier wonders if the four’s handlers experienced complications.

The four, however loyal they were at the beginning, are more vicious than he and Winter and are more prone to lashing out at random in comparison to the Soldier’s premeditated acts of rebellion or Winter’s sudden but effective change of heart. It would make sense, and while the Soldier likes being in the know, he can hardly ask his handler what the hold up is.

The first indication he gets that things are not as he had initially assumed is the screaming.

The Soldier can hear it before his handler can, and while screams are not unusual where HYDRA is concerned, this sounds closer than it should be and more frantic than furious, the latter being characteristic of his fellow Soldiers.

Then there are the footsteps—just two sets.

The Soldier knows he is being asked to do something different by the time his opponent appears, but it is still unpleasant to be faced with someone he would prefer leaving well enough alone.

For her part, the battered girl in front of him, who can’t be more than sixteen by the Soldier’s evaluation, looks like she would rather be anywhere else when her guard shoves her forward.

The Soldier knows what to do, and while the girl is faster than she should be and has an interesting trick with metal that nearly cuts one of the Soldier’s fingers off, she is young and scared and the Soldier has been told to show no mercy.

The Soldier stands above her in a matter of minutes, his boot on her leg he’s twisted at an unnatural angle keeping her still as he holds a knife in his palm and glances back to his handler. No mercy can mean beat someone bloody, and no mercy can mean kill. The Soldier has no plans to receive punishment for choosing the wrong interpretation.

His handler locks eyes with the guard. “Is he supposed to finish her off?”

The guard shakes his head. “Wouldn’t be a big deal if he did, but no. They’re interested in collecting enhanceds right now. This one was supposedly doing well, and they wanted to see how she did in a real fight.” The guard snorts. “Not good, apparently.”

The girl whimpers under his foot, and the Soldier, admittedly, empathizes with her. He thinks he was like her once, sucked into a world he knew nothing about and trying his best to be strong, and he’s lucky his handler hasn’t caught—or at least hasn’t said anything about catching—that he went easy on the girl.

“Let her up, Soldier,” his handler says, and though the Soldier moves away, she stays wrapped around her now-broken leg, shuddering in pain.

When the guard kicks her, she yelps.

The Soldier watches impassively. He should feel more, he knows that, but he’s too busy trying to scrape by himself to muster the urge to care about HYDRA’s interest in bulking up their stock of people to use as firepower. If they’re all as young as her, he doubts they’ll make it very far, anyway, not if his superiors are desperate enough to feed them to the wolves without prior training.

The Soldier is led back to his cell for his shower, and he doesn’t see the girl again.

//

_HYDRA BASE - ????_  
  


On the Soldier’s first assignment, he murders a family of five—a political couple and their children. He never learns that. If anything, what comes back to him on the rare occasion he goes long enough without a wipe to remember is the wonder on their youngest child’s face when he saw a man with a built-in nightlight.

His words, not the Soldier’s, and he kills him all the same, though for people he knows are going before their time, he always tries to be fast.

When he comes back to base, he dares to speak when they take his muzzle off him and replace it with a new one that isn’t bloodstained—one of the only kind-of-good things that can come from a successful mission.

“I need another layer to cover my battery,” he tells his handler at the time, a slim man who enjoys his position more than is comfortable for the Soldier. His eyes, a stormy grey, snap to him from where he stands a few feet away, allowing an underling to do the actual work with the Soldier.

“What was that?” he asks, and the Soldier senses his place on the tip of a dagger, one slip away from being gutted. However, he’ll be in more trouble if he’s silent now and a future mission gets messed up because he’s so obviously other.

“I need another layer to cover my battery,” he repeats. “It’s a distraction.”

His handler tuts, considering, but eventually, the Soldier’s observation gets him what he asks for. He returns to the field, and being handed a file with everything he needs to know to snuff out someone’s life becomes second nature. HYDRA has plenty for him to do, and if he is not terrorizing the outside world on its command, he is building something someone else can use to do that for him. And when, ever so rarely, they run out of work for him, it is a simple matter to shut the Soldier in storage.

HYDRA does not care that he wakes from the ice feeling like a breeze might shatter him, and with the chair, the words, and a searing pain next to his heart to keep him in line, the Soldier’s dreams of being free fade further and further away until the best he can do in the way of rebellion, other than his brief but fateful attempt with Winter, is interpret his orders as loosely as possible.

The Soldier hates, but he obeys, becoming everything Pierce knew he would be when he convinced HYDRA to sign that check all those years ago.

It continues that way for years, and then one day, HYDRA discovers two scientists—husband and wife—researching subjects it would rather see left alone. 

What HYDRA wants, HYDRA gets, and the Soldier receives a file from his handler that seals Richard and Mary Parker’s fates.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

_Hack the cameras_ , Iron said, like it was nothing. And to him, it’s probably not. Sometimes Bucky forgets that he’s a genius. He’s had years to do so, certainly, but Iron has a way of coming back, whether he’s wanted or not. Regardless, Iron gives him an address and a name and no _reasonable_ way to check in on the kid in question without magically learning several college classes worth of computer science overnight.

Bucky thinks about ignoring the request, but there are a few reasons he doesn’t. 

First and foremost, Iron took the time and risk to come to him. Bucky knows the consequences of disobeying HYDRA firsthand and also knows that for all the shit Iron deals with, he does a damn good job shielding himself from what he can. If he thought the punishment he might take for what HYDRA will perceive as trying to escape should they find out was worth it, he has to have a pretty fucking good reason. 

Second of all, Iron might be the smartest person Bucky’s ever met, but if he can track Bucky down, so can someone else. Moving places is probably for the best. Iron’s kid, however the hell he came to be, is living somewhere Bucky’s interested in going anyway, and it helps that HYDRA’s apparently keeping its business outside the U.S.

Third, and maybe most importantly, Iron’s alone because he left. Bucky’s done his best to block most of his experiences out, but he knows what HYDRA does. In the brief time Bucky saw him, Iron did a bad job covering up the fact that he’s doubtlessly gotten a hell of a refresher course. Bucky isn’t sure he could force himself to go back into their clutches to save Iron—Bucky isn’t even sure he can truthfully say he regrets leaving Iron for his own freedom—but he can do this for him as the barest form of repaying what he’s clearly gone through since Insight.

And so when Iron comes crashing into his life with his usual flair for doing the unexpected, Bucky moves back to Brooklyn. His place is worse than in Romania, but something is soothing about being back in his city, though he can hardly recognize it nowadays.

He thinks he came back with HYDRA, but he can’t be sure. If he did, he doesn’t remember it, but while he’s excited in a way he didn’t think he got anymore to see what’s changed of his home, he’s there for a reason.

Bucky purposely got a place a good ways away from the kid.

Call him paranoid from a couple decades of brainwashing, but while Iron’s a genius, HYDRA is ruthless, and he is fallible. If they come and get the kid, Bucky’s not going down with him, or at least that was his thinking going into things.

Bucky plans to check out his living situation, maybe his school, and call it good, but Iron didn’t tell him to get close to the kid—he said to check on him.

_“And if something is wrong, fix it.”_

Bucky is no hacker, not without orders, but he’s cracked the internet enough to find an obituary for one Benjamin Parker, loving husband and guardian.

Bucky wishes Iron was there so he could deck him because how the hell does he fix that? 

Bucky knows death, not grief, and certainly not on a kid a century younger than him that looks like a strong breeze could tip him over, who he monitors across streets, through the windows of shops along the road. He doesn’t even know where to begin, but Bucky has never been a quitter.

Bucky has been sent to New York City on a mission, and he musters his willpower to think of a way to try, wondering all along how Iron found a kid like Peter Parker in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright alright I know there’s _technically_ no Peter appearance in this chapter, but I’ll make up for it next week—promise. More importantly, [verulams (finnlogan)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnlogan/pseuds/verulams) on here was kind enough to write a remix of this fic! It’s absolutely incredible and is linked down below! If you enjoy this fic and are looking more of it before the next update, I’d highly encourage reading it! Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week!


	4. Chapter 4

_NEW YORK CITY - 9 YEARS AGO_ **  
**

The Soldier shouldn’t go back. He is aware that every time he does, he risks punishment. He risks endangering the child, and what use is there in having saved his life if he leads HYDRA back to him? 

The Soldier is driven by orders, but when there are none, he falls back on his reasoning, which is worth trusting more than most things in his life.

But at the start, he doesn’t have a reason for continuing to visit the child aside from the fact that what he sees of him, he—mostly—remembers. His last wipe alone, he came back to himself and thought of observing him through his window. The Soldier remembers what he has to in order to survive, but even then, it doesn’t come back to him like the child. He has to sit in his cell for a while to think or be put in a situation where he needs to know certain things for any of it to return, but the image of the child appears without warning, without even being invited.

Things like that can’t be taken for granted when the Soldier has so little, so he returns to him. 

New York City has quite a bit going on and a lot of things that interest HYDRA, and the Soldier is not technically defying any orders if he simply elongates his missions for his own needs.

In the beginning, it’s just watching, finding a place for himself in the rooftops near his apartment and making sure nothing has done him in during the Soldier’s absence, which, he realizes belatedly, is a concern that probably stems from killing the majority of new faces he meets. The child is fine, or at least as fine as the Soldier supposes he can be, considering the circumstances. If the Soldier remembers the timeline of school correctly, he should be starting in the fall.

The Soldier forgets countless missions, but where the child is concerned, things are clearer, and how they met is no exception to the rule.

When the Soldier is given a rare bit of time for himself, he wonders what the child would think, knowing he has a shadow in the shape of the monster who killed his parents.

At the idea of seeing his eyes fill with tears again—or worse, the hate the Soldier is so familiar with—the Soldier resolves to not let him find out.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 8 YEARS AGO_

The Soldier is in the city again, and by now, he’s learned to watch the child’s school if he wants a shot at seeing him. His aunt normally picks him up, and, yes, her car is in the pick-up line, but the child’s not there.

The Soldier feels something in his stomach twist.

The child, from what he has seen from him, listens to his guardians. He should be with his aunt by now, and the Soldier is very aware of the things that can happen to children left alone, especially in a city as big as New York, partially because he’s been one of those things.

His eyes narrow, and he slips away from his spot on a bench down the street to go looking.

The Soldier can’t normally say he has a consistent reason other than his own curiosity in visiting the boy. His aunt and uncle, despite the original fear that reared its head when the Soldier realized there might be more threats in the boy’s life than HYDRA, treat him well. He goes to a good school, even lives in a relatively safe area of the city.

Now, the Soldier slips through the people on the street to find him. He’s looking for a backpack, even just a mop of curls, and then— _there._

But the Soldier’s not the only one who’s noticed him.

It’s helpful that he’s been required to blend in on the assignment that brought him back to the child, seemingly in the nick of time, but civilian clothes and a mouth that’s free to say whatever it desires don’t mask the deadly concentration on his face or the stiff, sure movements of his arms to jostle people out of his way.

A man is speaking to the child, a man whose smile is too wide and with a gun too black for anyone not paying attention to see as his jacket flaps in the wind, but the Soldier _is_ focused and has the rare desire to kill thrumming in his pulse.

The man is lucky there are too many eyes around for the Soldier to do what he wants, and the Soldier appears at the child’s back, placing a hand on his shoulder. “There you are, Peter,” he says. His tone is light—chipper, even—but his expression is the last thing a rogue scientist saw a few hours previous when the Soldier put a bullet in his head. “Your aunt’s waiting for you back at school.”

The child wasn’t supposed to know, but the Soldier would rather face his hatred than see him stolen.

The man, at least, isn’t stupid enough to try and argue.

The Soldier has a way of letting normal people know they’re outmatched without having to lift a finger.

“I—we were just talking. Trying to figure out where he came from,” he tries, and the Soldier nods and pulls up the bottom of his shirt for a fraction of a second—just long enough for the man to catch a glimpse of the weapons he has on hand that far outnumber a single gun.

“Thanks for the help, but I’ve got it now, don’t worry.”

His hand hasn’t left Peter’s shoulder, and he even cracks a smile—more of a baring of teeth, really—that says _“if you don’t get out of here now, I’ll make you.”_

The man scrambles back down the street, and the Soldier becomes aware that Peter is shaking, craning his neck to look up at him. The expression that greets him is everything the Soldier didn’t ever want to have to see—wide eyes, tears threatening to fall and, above all, terror.

It’s so much easier to leave things like this behind him before he has to see the consequences of his orders, but Peter is in front of the Soldier now, looking as scared as he did that day in the kitchen.

(Somehow, when the Soldier stepped in to protect him, Peter earned a name other than _the child.)_

“You came back,” he whispers, and like before, the Soldier is wary of setting him off. If he screams, he’ll draw attention, and word of the Soldier’s personal attachment to the city will get out.

“I did,” he agrees, trying for neutrality. “Come on, this way. Your aunt’s waiting.”

Peter doesn’t fight him, and the Soldier understands the fear that makes him compliant more than he’d care to say. However, as clearly upset as he is, he never stops talking.

The Soldier used to be able to relate to that too.

“She’s okay? You—you didn’t—”

“She’s fine. Probably worried about you. Watch your step,” he says, tugging him around a particularly deep crack in the sidewalk.

“Why’d you make that guy stop talking to me?”

“He skeeved me out.” An oversimplification, but true. “Haven’t people told you not to talk to strangers?”

“You’re talking to me.”

“Well, you know me, so I’m not a stranger.”

The Soldier has a habit of running his mouth too much, and from the way the kid stiffens under his touch, he knows immediately that he’s gone too far. Abruptly, Peter pulls away from the Soldier’s grip, mouth twisting up as those tears from before begin to fall. It’s not as busy a little closer to the school, and the Soldier hopes that whoever sees the two of them thinks he’s a parent arguing with his kid. Peter’s hands clench into fists at his side, and he raises his wobbling chin to look the Soldier in the eye.

The motion alone is more than he gets from his handlers some days, and the Soldier braces himself for what has to be a terrible conversation to come.

“Why?” Peter can hardly manage to whisper.

The Soldier wishes this wasn’t so public, but he deserves an answer.

“Because I didn’t have a choice,” he replies earnestly, and Peter makes a sound like he’s choking. The Soldier doesn’t know what the hell that means, but his aunt’s car is up ahead—not even the last in the line-up. The Soldier doesn’t know what to do with Peter as he starts to dissolve into sobs, heart-wrenching, shoulder-shaking things. If he sends him back to his aunt like this, she’ll ask what’s wrong, and the Soldier can’t risk him saying anything about seeing him—not now. He has to calm him, but he doesn’t know _how_. He’s not made for things like this anymore, and he _knew_ it was a mistake to come back before he even started this, he _knew_ he should leave the child who never asked for a protector alone.

(But if he hadn’t, who would’ve shooed that man just now away?)

Ultimately, the Soldier falls back on something familiar, something that reminds him of what another child once saw and adored, face alight with fascination, just before the Soldier killed him.

“Hey, _hey_ —if you stop crying, I’ll show you a secret,” he mutters, voice low, eyes darting around for anyone watching them that shouldn’t be.

The Soldier remembers Peter’s eyes, and he remembers his curiosity.

The sobs don’t stop, not entirely, but the Soldier’s words create a break in them that he thinks he can pry open a little farther. The Soldier reaches for his hand, and this time, he doesn’t pull away. 

When his palm lands on the Soldier’s battery, Peter jolts.

Peter might be a child, but even he knows what a body is supposed to look like. A few more tears slip down his cheeks, but his head pops up, too hungry to know more to stop himself from speaking to something that’s caused him so much pain.

“What—what is that?” he manages, and the Soldier is surprised to find his lips curling.

The Soldier smiled the first time he spoke with him, but this is real. No one asks what his light is anymore. His handlers know it keeps him running, his opponents know it’s a weak point to exploit, and his assignments never know about it at all, which means that the Soldier has never admitted his genius to someone else before.

It seems there’s a first time for everything.

“Have you ever heard of an arc reactor?” he asks. When the child shakes his head, the Soldier nods. “Fair. You’re a little young for that yet, but if you wanted, you could ask your aunt or uncle to look it up for you.” He smooths his hands—calloused though they are from an existence spent wrapped around guns and hammers and knives and wrenches—down Peter’s arms, unable to say where the motion comes from but knowing it’s supposed to be comforting. “It’s kind of a magnet, kind of a battery. A nice mix, really. I’ve got some extra shirts on to keep it hidden, but it glows too. Pretty cool, right?”

The boy nods, rubbing at his eyes. The Soldier doesn’t see any more tears coming though, which is a relief. “Why do you have a magnet?” he asks, beginning to fumble at the shape of it he can feel through the Soldier’s layers. It hurts, as it always does when someone touches it, but the Soldier has felt worse than a child’s curiosity.

The Soldier’s smile turns a touch wry. “An accident I had a long time ago. There’s some metal around there, and the magnet keeps it from touching anything important.”

Peter nods and sniffs, and the Soldier glances up the street, towards the school. He’s been blocking Peter from sight with his body, but his aunt has to be getting nervous by now.

The Soldier lets Peter feel the plate a little longer, and then he gently puts his hand down, ignoring the sweetness he swears he can taste whenever the light gets finicky.

“Go home, okay? If you’re fast, I’ll let you see the part that lights up the next time I drop by.”

Peter’s brow furrows, and he tips his head in confusion, a curl flopping at the motion. “Next time?” he asks, and the Soldier doesn’t know why something that feels suspiciously like his heart lurches at the tone of the question.

“Next time,” he promises. “Go to your aunt. I’ll see you around.”

Peter looks at him for a moment longer, and then the Soldier gives him a gentle shove towards the pick-up line.

When Peter looks back over his shoulder before opening the car door, the Soldier has already disappeared into the shadows.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 7 YEARS AGO_

The Soldier gets away on occasion but not nearly as often as he’d like, not when he remembers how easy it was for the man to get close to him the day Peter got it into his head to walk home. 

The Soldier doesn’t care to think about what might’ve happened if he hadn’t been there.

He can check in every so often, and when he does, he sees that he’s still living in a good enough neighborhood with his aunt and uncle who the Soldier has reluctantly decided can be trusted. He doesn’t know _why_ he keeps an eye on them, exactly, especially the uncle. Peter never looks unhappy with them, but there’s something that pings with alarm every time the Soldier sees the uncle reach for him, expecting the worst. 

It doesn’t make sense. They look like normal people, don’t even look similar to any of the agents the Soldier sees consistently, but he thinks it might be one of his survival instincts cropping up unexpectedly.

The Soldier can never pinpoint the exact cause of those, anyway.

The next time he gets a chance to talk with Peter, he’s seven, and the Soldier climbs up the fire escape and across a few window sills to knock on the one in his bedroom. The kid’s working on homework, his aunt’s massacring dinner in the kitchen, and he nearly falls out of his chair at the sight of him in full armor, which the Soldier supposes is fair. Still, he lets him in, despite his heart the Soldier he can hear racing, and after a quick preamble—

_“You doing okay?”_

_“Yeah—yeah, I’m good.”_

—Peter sits down at the desk, tiny like everything else in the room is. The Soldier’s eyes follow the movement, naturally, and find that his homework is not the simple addition and subtraction he’s expecting.

The Soldier reaches over, picking up the worksheet of equations he’s apparently been given. “You’re in second grade, aren’t you?” he asks, careful to keep his voice down so as not to alert his aunt.

“My teacher said she wanted me to try some extension stuff.”

_Huh._

“Do you need help?” the Soldier asks.

He’s always found parts of himself in Peter, but he didn’t realize just how much they had in common before now.

Peter shrugs. “Sure,” he says, and the Soldier finds himself crouched over a child’s desk, explaining _y = mx + b_ until the worksheet is done and Peter’s heartbeat has returned to normal. Despite the smell of burnt cheese steadily permeating the apartment, the Soldier thinks Peter’s meal is almost ready. He stands to go, smiling to himself at some comment Peter made when he hears him clear his throat.

The Soldier pauses, looking to him with his raised brow.

Peter motions to his chest. “You said that I could see, last time.”

For all that he remembers of Peter, the wipes have done away with his recollection of that particular promise, but the Soldier takes his word for it. He nods, undoing the thick straps of the vest he wears to expose his undershirt, a thin, black layer with a hole cut through its center.

Peter gasps at the sight of it, and though he has to stand on his toes to see clearly, he nearly presses his nose to the layer of glass covering it.

“It’s a magnet?” he asks, and the Soldier nods.

“Yeah. Did I tell you that?”

Peter barely spares him a nod, tapping on the front of the light, just hard enough to make the Soldier grit his teeth. “Mm-hmm,” he mutters. “And it’s a battery. And an arc reactor.”

The Soldier tenses, but if Peter notices, he doesn’t say anything. “I told you that too?”

“Yeah,” Peter replies. “I looked it up, but there’s only one other big reactor with this company—I forget the name. It, like, does all this stuff with energy, but they’re really hard to make.” He looks up, the eyes that have haunted the Soldier for so long gleaming with earnestness. “I guess that makes you really smart.”

The Soldier shrugs, but there’s the ghost of a smile on his lips, something he’s realizing Peter is skilled at pulling out of him. “I guess that does.”

Peter keeps examining the light, and his next words are softer, almost fearful. “You said you didn’t get to choose when you—um—” he breaks off for a moment, sounding strangled, “—with my parents, right?” he asks, unable to voice what the Soldier did. He understands all the same.

The Soldier nods. “That’s right,” he replies, equally quiet.

Peter pokes the edge of the light, and the Soldier, with years of practice, does not so much as draw a sharper breath. For what he’s done to Peter, it seems a small retribution to endure his exploration of something he’s doubtlessly not seen before. 

“Why didn’t you get to choose?”

How does the Soldier begin to explain that to someone who should’ve never been put in a position where he might need to know?

The Soldier hums, one of many sounds he gets to make with his muzzle off, which he left sitting on the fire escape and will pick up on his way down. “When certain people tell me to do things, I have to listen, even if I don’t want to,” he finally says, the best answer he can give without letting a child know things he hates to think about himself.

“How do they make you?”

There’s no way to simplify that.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he says, though if the boy remembered a year-old promise to show him the one creation he’s managed to keep his own, the Soldier thinks he probably should’ve made his refusal to say more firm. It’s too late for that though, and Peter is already asking why he can’t know now, to which the Soldier makes another mistake.

“You don’t even know my name. Why should I tell you what I get up to when I’m not keeping you out of trouble?”

“Then tell me!” Peter demands.

Just like coming back to check on him, the Soldier shouldn’t. Peter shouldn’t have any further connection with him than this—the odd conversation the Soldier can scarcely believe he’s allotted when he considers the horrible thing he’s done to him—but he asks so genuinely, the Soldier finds himself telling him anyway.

“Iron,” he says.

Not the Star, and not the Soldier. There is nothing bright about him, especially not in Peter’s eyes, and he shouldn’t have to address him as the creature who so savagely cut away the two most important figures in his life. For Peter, he’ll be this part of his namesake—unbreakable, solid, able to be forged into anything he needs.

It’s the least he’s owed, the Soldier thinks, but Peter’s nose wrinkles. “Iron?” he asks, sounding less than impressed. “Really?”

The Soldier’s brows arch further. “Not good enough for you?”

“It’s _weird_ ,” he deadpans.

The title HYDRA hand-picked for the assassin they made, and it’s torn to shreds by a seven-year-old boy with two words. The Soldier finds it so funny he barks out a laugh, scratchy and odd from collecting dust for so long, but a laugh all the same. He has to bring himself back under control before his aunt hears something, but he ruffles the kid’s hair, ignoring his yelp of protest.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he tells him, and when he heads through the window again, his muzzle doesn’t feel as suffocating as he locks it back in place.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 5 YEARS AGO_

The years pass in relative ease, as far as Peter is concerned, and are marked for the Soldier, who otherwise has very little grasp on time, by his birthdays. Peter turns eight, then nine, and while the Soldier can’t do much in the way of presents, it’s not hard to steal a wallet and offer Peter what cash he finds in it for a sandwich from his favorite bodega. All along, the Soldier ducks in for a chat when he can and merely steals glimpses if not, and other than a bully he occasionally scares off with a quick chat before he gets into an absurdly expensive car at the end of the school day, the help he offers Peter is limited to math and science problems several years ahead of his grade level.

The astronomy kick he has midway through fourth grade is especially noteworthy and not just because the Soldier finds him on the roof of his apartment building on one of his visits.

The Soldier has gotten fairly skilled at climbing Peter’s building in particular, and he appears as he always does, silent out of habit but almost instantly acknowledged. Peter has a talent for sensing his presence, however sporadic it may be, and he doesn’t bother looking up from the telescope he’s using when he greets him.

“I was wondering when you’d come around again. It’s been awhile,” he says, leaning into the telescope before jotting something in a notebook he has balanced on one of his crossed knees.

The Soldier takes his muzzle off, a form of liberation he’s come to associate with Peter. His goggles follow, cracked from a shoot-out he dealt with earlier. He leaves them in a pile in the corner along with the rifle he has strapped to his back. He normally doesn’t come to see Peter so heavily armed, but this assignment has been rushed in general.

He comes to sit by him, eyeing the book he has open at his side.

“Didn’t know space was your thing,” he says.

Peter nods, leaning further into his telescope. The Soldier wonders how far he can see in the smog of the city, but he doesn’t want to ruin his fun. He thinks about advising him to straighten up before he hurts his back too, but the kid’s young and can learn from his own mistakes when they’re as simple as this. “Ben has this old telescope he said I can use, and we’re having a unit about it in school right now.” He looks up again, scribbling something the Soldier can’t make out in his notebook before finally looking at him, an enthusiastic smile on his face.

“Tell me about it,” the Soldier prompts. By now, the kid lets him know straight out of the gate if something’s up, and this somehow seems more important than what the Soldier keeps telling himself his motives are for seeing him.

(It’s been a long time since he arrived with the sole purpose of quashing any threats in his life.)

Peter nearly explodes with information. He has it on the tip of his tongue, launching into explanations of back holes, supernovas, undiscovered planets, and so much more it would make a lesser man’s head spin. Fortunately, while it’s nothing the Soldier is an expert in, astronomy is a science, and the Soldier knows enough about it to follow along. The kid’s gotten into some complex stuff in his learning, and the Soldier is impressed. Really, it’s only fair that the Soldier tells him one of his other names, knowing how much he’ll appreciate it.

“I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise me you’ll still call me Iron.”

Peter, apparently tired after explaining more about space than what the Soldier would wager a high school graduate knows, nods from his place lying on the roof, limbs akimbo as he stares into the sky. “Promise,” he says gravely.

“Sometimes, the people I work for call me the Star.”

He genuinely thinks the kid starts vibrating in excitement. He sits back up, eyes glittering in the lights of the city. _“Really?”_

“Really,” the Soldier confirms.

His _“why”_ is expected but as challenging as ever, so the Soldier gives him the censored truth. 

“You know how when stars explode, they create new elements?”

A nod, almost comically fast.

“I build lots of stuff for them.” A pause, and a corner of the Soldier’s mouth tugs itself into a grin. “And I’m blindingly beautiful.”

Peter snorts, and the Soldier is glad he’s too amused to press for more reasons, like that he’s a smaller version of Winter and was named after the red shape on his arm—or that even something as incredible as the sun can be harnessed for a higher purpose.

Those explanations fall into the pile of things that Peter will never know about if he can help it, and the Soldier watches Peter get to his feet to suddenly stand above him, being that the Soldier is still seated.

Peter stares up into the heavens, arms spread wide as if in anticipation of catching whatever might fall from them. There’s not much to see in the pollution of the city, but Peter tends to make the most of the bad in his life.

The rooftop falls quiet for a moment, and when Peter’s eyes fall to the Soldier, he’s struck with the sensation that something is coming that he hasn’t had enough warning to prepare for. The feeling is proved to be well-founded when Peter speaks.

“I forgive you, you know.”

The Soldier blanks.

What does he mean, he _forgives_ him? There is no _forgiving_ what he’s done, what he’s _stolen_ from Peter. That’s why he keeps coming _back_ , persistent memories aside. Even if Peter only keeps him around for his usefulness, the Soldier understands that he’s destroyed a significant part of the life of possibly the most undeserving person he’s ever met. There’s no coming back from that, but Peter juts his chin up like he always does when he’s getting stubborn about something. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I do—I forgive you. If—if you didn’t have a choice, then I can’t blame you. It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Soldier’s ability to talk returns to him, and his words come out in a disbelieving rush. “Peter, no— _no.”_ The Soldier doesn’t know how children work, aside from Peter, but this can’t be right, it _can’t._ “You can blame me all you want—you _get_ to blame me. Even if I didn’t have a choice, I did it.” The Soldier pulls himself to his feet, walking carefully towards Peter. Something must be wrong with him—he’s not making any sense. 

He is the Soldier. He kills. He’s accepted that there’s no getting around it, but that makes him terrible— _unforgivable_. Peter can’t just change that.

The Soldier stands in front of Peter, hoping how unreasonable he thinks the kid is being comes through in his tone. “Just because I’m here now doesn’t mean—”

 _“I. Forgive. You,”_ Peter reiterates, brazenly cutting him off and meeting him head-on. “I have for a while now, and you can’t change that.”

And what the fuck is the Soldier supposed to say to that? He isn’t HYDRA, he can’t shake someone up and make them think what he wants them to, but just this once, he wishes he could, he wishes he could just make him _see_ —

The breath leaves him in a rush because, as if to prove his point, Peter closes the distance between them and wraps the Soldier in his embrace, not even flinching when his head thunks against his light.

Slowly, _slowly,_ the Soldier’s arms settle around Peter in return, unsure what to do with contact that doesn’t hurt, and in one illuminating second where there is nothing to the Soldier’s world but the roof and the child on it, the Soldier realizes he can’t remember the last time he heard Peter’s heartbeat pick up around him.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 1 1/2 YEARS AGO_

The Soldier has some complaints about the state of the fire escape he takes to Peter’s room. He’s used it for the better part of a decade to get where he needs to be, damnit, and he doesn’t appreciate having the bottom step loose. He nearly fell when he tried to place his weight on it, and he doesn’t trust it to hold his gear, meaning it has to go on the _second_ step, which, while not noticeably different than the first, is not part of the Soldier’s routine. 

It’s _irritating,_ and he brings it up with Peter when the kid comes home from school and finds him in his desk chair, resisting the urge to spin in it. Now that Peter’s getting older, he’s home alone more, which makes seeing him easier, both because the Soldier doesn’t have to watch for a legal guardian that might have more than a few questions about why a man with bloodstains on his clothes is making himself at home in their apartment and because when he does see Peter, he can talk as loudly as he wants.

“It’s _rude,”_ he tells him from where they’ve settled on the ground, and Peter laughs, hunched over his algebra homework. Just for that, the Soldier runs his finger across the paper, smearing some of the lead on the problem he’s working on.

Peter rolls his eyes but continues writing. “Sorry, sorry,” he sighs, though he doesn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. “I’ll let the landlord know,” he says and stands up to make a note of it on the messy calendar he has hanging on the wall. 

The Soldier waves a hand. “You’re too pure for your own good, kid. You don’t actually have to worry about it—I’m just complaining. Sit back down.”

Peter sighs again— _dramatic,_ the Soldier thinks—but takes a seat and sets his homework aside this time.

“How are you?” the Soldier asks. “Halfway through middle school already—is it going okay?”

And Peter, for all of the mannerisms that are starting to come out with him nearing his teens, still flashes a smile. “Yeah—yeah, it’s fine. It’s _easy,”_ he admits, which the Soldier supposes is a given. The kid can do calculus with a little help, never mind algebra, which is already advanced for his age. 

The Soldier can’t remember his own education, but he thinks he can relate.

“What about you?” he asks, and as always, the Soldier prepares himself to dart around what questions Peter has. The problem is, these days, not answering Peter’s increasingly specific inquiries can raise just as much suspicion as a dodgy answer. “Had any bad fights recently?”

The Soldier shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you.”

“Interesting projects?”

“No comment.”

“Come on, can I just know who it is you work for? I’m _older_ now, and—”

“Absolutely not.”

_“Iron—”_

The Soldier can detect a whine coming into his voice, and he shakes his head, cutting him off before he can get any farther. “I said no,” he intones, more stern than he usually has to be with the kid.

The problem is, as Peter grows up, he can increasingly tell something is _off_ about the Soldier. He knows the kind of work he does, but he’s always been a curious creature; he wants to know more about the figure who’s forced to dip in and out of his life at random. Peter looks frustrated, and the Soldier is quick to continue.

“The less you know about what I do, the better, kid.”

“I’m almost thirteen now—”

“Which is code for you’re still _twelve.”_

“—and I can take it.”

Peter is looking at him with so much hope in his eyes that he manages to make the Soldier feel bad about not being able to tell him anything _for his own safety._

The Soldier lets out a sigh of his own, rubbing his temples. For all that talking with Peter—that talking in general—makes him feel like something other than the tool HYDRA’s made him, it feels a lot like a headache as of late. “You know more about me than most FBI agents. That should be a solid reason for you to stop asking me things, but I know you, and you’re stubborn as shit—” Peter lets out a faux-scandalized gasp “—and you like to be in the know. Unfortunately, I have a few reminders for you. Number one,” and here, he makes sure Peter is looking him dead in the eyes, “I’m not a good person.”

Peter scoffs, and the Soldier taps the side of his face, bringing his attention back to him. “I’m _not_ a good person,” he repeats. “I don’t do good things, and you _know_ that. I happen to like you, and you happen to like me, but there are a lot of people out there who wouldn’t blink to get to me through you.”

Peter’s expression darkens a fraction, and the Soldier is relieved that he’s starting to get through to him. For as much as he’s grown, he still has a brilliant head on his shoulders, even if that sometimes gets buried in the desire to unearth the mystery he sees the Soldier as. 

“Two—I work for bad people, and normal people don’t know about them. When they find out, they die.”

_And the Soldier is the one that kills them._

“But if I don’t _tell_ anyone—”

“I’m not taking that chance with you.” The Soldier’s voice comes out with more of a growl to it than he intends, and Peter visibly shrinks back. The Soldier feels bad, but Peter is tenacious as hell. If a little fear is what it takes to throw him off his latest obsession, so be it.

“And three—I don’t _want_ to talk about it.” Peter can be blasé about his own safety, but if the Soldier makes it personal, he’ll stop pushing. Peter’s staring at the ground now, but the Soldier brings it home. “Even if I could remember half of what you wanted to know, I don’t like any of it, and I don’t want to recount it to a kid who’s better off not knowing, do you understand me?”

The answer he’s looking for comes after a too-long pause and a sniffle. “Yes,” Peter whispers, and then the Soldier smells salt and sees something wet drop onto the hardwood.

_Shit._

The Soldier would do just about anything for Peter, but _doing_ is far easier than _mending._

He hasn’t gotten any better at drying tears over the years, but he still tries, tugging Peter to him after a moment of deliberation. They’ve been in the same position more than once over the years, but it never fails to surprise the Soldier that Peter willingly leans into his touch.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters over his shoulder, and Peter mumbles something into his chest that sounds like _“I’m sorry too”_ in response. The Soldier can feel a little dampness leaking through his shirt, but it doesn’t take as long as he expected for Peter to calm down, pulling back and wiping at his face.

He looks up at him with red eyes that are more than a little ashamed, and the Soldier is reminded for the umpteenth time that he doesn’t deserve him. “I’m sorry for pushing,” he croaks.

“I’m sorry for going too far,” the Soldier responds in turn. “I just—you gotta’ understand, kid, I don’t want you anywhere near the rest of my life. You have too much going for you to get tangled in that mess.”

Peter nods in understanding, but the Soldier still feels bad. It won’t hurt to toss him a _little_ bone, and he was already planning on telling him, besides. He straightens up, clearing his throat. _“But_ —while all those warnings still apply, you should know that I think something big is coming.”

“Something big?” Peter asks, unable to help himself.

The Soldier nods. “I’m not sure what, exactly, but things are busier around the base. I might not be back for a while if I’m right, so don’t get all emotional waiting up for me.”

Peter snorts—“Good riddance.”

“You’re a little shit, Parker,” the Soldier teases back, and the conversation pings back and forth until the Soldier sees the sun begin to slide below the horizon and starts to head out. 

Peter watches him go—he’s asked him more than once to teach him how to do it, but the Soldier has endangered Peter enough without adding a broken arm to the mix—and as he does, he calls out to the Soldier as he hops from window sill to window sill. “You know, if I really wanted to know who you’re working with, I could just google the weird thing on your suit.”

The Soldier rolls his eyes. He’s talking about the HYDRA emblem, but the Soldier doesn’t bother to tell him not to—it’s not like anything will come up. Instead, he calls back, dropping cleanly onto the fire escape. “It’s an octopus,” he tells him, and just like when he was younger, Peter’s nose wrinkles in disdain.

“That’s stupid,” he says. “It doesn’t even have eight legs.”

The Soldier can’t say he’s thought about it long enough to notice before, but the observation is astute, if a little pointless, and so effortlessly _Peter_ it splits the Soldier’s sides with the laugh it punches out of him.

It’s a good memory to have of the kid as he slinks out of sight, and it’s the last the Soldier gets for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Backstory babey, and with the preliminaries out of the way, Peter will feature more heavily throughout the rest of this fic!! See you guys next week!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: non-graphic vomit mention

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_ **  
**

The Soldier stares at the form on the ground.

He’d thought the girl was a one-off thing, but while he still receives assignments—even back in the States, after what the Soldier speculates to be a few more months of backing off—he’s being used for other purposes at base.

HYDRA really is interested in collecting enhanceds, and as far as the Soldier can tell, when they start thinking one has potential, they throw them up against him to see how they fare.

He always tries to be as gentle as he’s allowed, and for the most part, the people they feed him—sometimes children, sometimes not—walk away. On occasion, but becoming more common now, he sees the same opponent again.

Something in the pit of his stomach burns when he thinks about what happens to those he doesn’t.

The thing is, his handler knows what the Soldier can do, and the Soldier thinks she grows bored with seeing the painfully inexperienced adversaries he goes up against end a fight with no more than a few broken bones.

He doesn’t know what to expect when his handler steps into his cell instead of leading him out of it, her eyes glittering. “You’ve been holding out on me, Soldier,” she says, and the Soldier sees her take out a journal he knows well—yellow leather with something that looks like a backward check mark on the front.

He knows what’s coming, but the words still wash over him the way they always do, stifling, leaching the warmth from his bones in a ten-step process until there is nothing of the Soldier left, only a weapon, frigid and unfeeling.

_“Gilded, revolution, two, exchange—”_

The Soldier doesn’t remember leaving his cell, but when he begins to come back to himself, there is a body and blood, more than what there should be from the wounds the Soldier sees on the corpse.

The Soldier can hear his handler talking, laughing with the guard, though he can only just distinguish her voice. 

“I told you he was holding back,” she murmurs. 

The Soldier looks at his hands. They don’t feel real—his entire body doesn’t quite feel like his own, but when has it ever been?

With the words fading, memories prod at the Soldier’s mind, reminding him of how many times his fellow Soldiers beat him down.

He hears the words from behind him as if there were a wall in between him and whoever says them. First, there’s a low whistle, as if in appreciation. Then, “Still, three? He doesn’t even look tired.”

And it’s true. The Soldier could take on double that amount before breaking a sweat, and he feels all the more monstrous for it.

(His hands might not feel real, but there’s blood on them too.)

“Are they gonna’ be mad they’re gone?”

Someone scoffs. “Those? Those were experiments. They’ll be glad to be rid of them.”

When did they clear the other two bodies away? How long did they last?

“Fair enough.” They don’t even sound _bothered_ , and while the Soldier doesn’t think his face knows how to properly express horror anymore, even if it was allowed, it knifes viciously through him. “Return to your cell, Soldier.”

The Soldier—though he’s not sure he’s anything more than iron—straightens up, his rust-colored hands falling to his sides.

Being forced to fight never fails to remind the Soldier of his helplessness, but it’s this, killing without responsibility, without even knowing what he’s doing, that ignites hate.

He strides out of the room with his head high, and the Soldier wonders when someone with the power to follow through will realize it’s high time to cut him down.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2014_

Peter is fourteen and sitting in biology when his phone buzzes. He keeps meaning to turn off notifications for the news app, but every so often, it does give him a useful update about the world. On reflex, he glances at the headline that comes across.

BREAKING: ALL SHIELD’S DATA DUMPED ONTO THE WEB

Peter doesn’t know why that’s important, but he’s pretty sure SHIELD is what made Captain America. More relevantly, Peter is really sick of learning about photosynthesis, and with a quick look to the front of the room to make sure his teacher isn’t watching, he pulls the article up.

He hums as he scans through it, looking for what the hell it actually means and _sheesh_ , okay, maybe—just this once—the news app did him a solid because this is a big deal. Like, a super big deal. Like, a deal of such insane proportions that he can’t believe everyone else in the class is learning basically the easiest chemical formula _ever_ when the last few decades of highly confidential government activities are out for anyone to see because—and this is the _really_ insane part—half of those were from a secret Nazi organization.

Seriously, what the fuck?

“Mr. Parker, is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

Peter’s first thought is _shit_ —his bio teacher’s got a thing about phones and he’s almost definitely going to get it taken away until the end of the school day—but his second is _wait, yeah, he kinda does._

He looks back to the article, making sure he’s getting the details. “Um, yeah, actually. Apparently, someone leaked, like, thousands of files about the part of the government that made Captain America.” Oh, he almost forgot the other thing. “And they leaked them because there was an evil organization inside the government one, which just crashed a ton of stuff in—” one last glance at his screen “—Washington D.C.”

His class, teacher included, stares at him. His teacher does not look pleased.

“It’s pretty wild,” he finishes weakly, and while people are asking him plenty of questions about it for the rest of the day, his phone still gets taken for not paying attention and disrupting class.

Peter is a little mad about it, but there’s still too much about the situation to unpack to spend too much time thinking about it. When he gets home, he settles into his desk chair and fires up the computer he’s made to dig back into it. He skips going back to the original article—which is more of a base overview, really—and goes straight to Google to find something more.

He’s never experienced a breach of national security before, especially not one that involves Captain America. It’s _exciting_ , and after consuming a few more pieces on it, some of which talk about the operations people are just _starting_ to uncover amidst the horde of information, Peter goes to enter the name of the organization that they found inside SHIELD.

HYDRA, right? 

Well, he’ll find out.

Peter hits enter and goes to click on the first link it provides him except in the pictures that pop up to the side—

He _knows_ that symbol. It’s the same one on Iron’s suit, the one that hangs over where the arc reactor sits in his chest. He’s tried to search it before, but nothing came up.

(Nothing came up because before now there was nothing to find.)

Peter counts the limbs on the thing—six—and remembers Iron’s laugh when he pointed it out. He remembers drawing it for months afterward, trying to get the skull just right. He probably _has_ some of those drawings still in his desk.

He checks the search bar, looking for a typo, for an alternate explanation, but the letters he’d typed so enthusiastically stand starkly on the screen, the black against white like a pattern he can somehow no longer decipher.

H-Y-D-R-A — HYDRA.

Suddenly, the insanity of the situation isn’t nearly as incredible as it was a few minutes ago.

Maybe, somehow, it’s a coincidence, he reasons. Iron isn’t with those people—can’t be.

But some of the last words Peter heard before his current months-long absence echo in his ears like he’s in the room.

 _“I’m not a good person,”_ he’d said. _“I don’t do good things.”_

But Peter had scoffed because bad people don’t let a six-year-old fawn over the coolest thing that six-year-old had ever seen set into someone’s body. Bad people don’t explain algebra more patiently than an actual teacher. Bad people don’t let kids rant about the stars to them, and yet—

 _“Why?”_ the six-year-old sobbed.

 _“Because I didn’t have a choice,”_ Iron responded.

Peter has read what has become too many articles in the span of a few minutes, and his knees hit the tile of his bathroom floor in the nick of time as he vomits into the toilet.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

Bucky has made a plan of attack. It’s a pretty shitty one, all things considered, but he has to start somewhere. It helps that he happens to like sandwiches.

Bucky’s been watching Peter for a couple of weeks now, which feels exactly as stalker-ish as it sounds, and by now, he knows that on Tuesdays and Thursdays he makes a stop after school at a local bodega—Delmar’s. There’s a place Bucky likes better in Brooklyn, honestly, but he’s not going for the food and finds himself a table in the back that he waits at, knowing the hop the kid does on his way in and his order before he says it.

_“A number five with pickles, and can you squish it down real flat?”_

Seriously, where did Iron find this kid?

The first few times he just observes. There’s a difference between knowing someone’s had a rough go of things and seeing it, but eventually, Bucky catches on.

The kid’s biggest tell is his eyes. There’s the look that comes over his face when he’s waiting for his order, forgetting in the empty time that he’s not supposed to show how sad he clearly is, but his eyes never stop moving, darting around the shop at every sound, from the ring of the bell above the door to the cursing of someone who dropped something they were carrying. Bucky, after a little bit more research, understands why.

The kid’s uncle died in a convenience store robbery, after all. As far as the kid’s mind knows a few months out from the incident, there’s an opportunity for the same thing to happen at the bodega.

So yeah, his eyes give him away, and one day, Bucky can feel them on him.

He glances up from where he’s very convincingly eating a plum and pretending to read a newspaper, and when the kid tears his eyes away from his arm long enough to realize he’s been caught, he flushes a tomato red.

He’s standing a little ways away, but not far enough for him to have to raise his voice to deliver his awkward apology. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I just—uh—am really interested in robotics, and—”

Bucky’s shitty plan has always involved eventually finding a way to start talking to the kid, and this works as well as anything.

He takes his glove off and slides his sleeve up, though not enough to expose the star, only a long, gleaming expanse of parts that gel seamlessly together and don’t even hurt anymore after the touch-up Iron gave them in Romania. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells him with a shrug. “You can look if you want.”

The kid’s mouth snaps shut, and he doesn’t take his eyes off him even when he gets his sandwich. “Really? You’re sure? ‘Cause if it’s not cool I don’t wanna’—”

“Seriously, kid, it’s fine.” He even holds it up a little for him to see better. “You wanna’ pull up a chair?”

The kid pulls up a chair.

He eats his sandwich there at Bucky’s prompting, but he can’t seem to pull his eyes away from his arm for longer than a few seconds.

“I’ve never seen a model that’s that _fluid_ ,” he says, wiping away a little pickle juice at the corner of his mouth.

“You do a lot of research on prosthetics?”

The kid nods. “I did a project on them earlier this year. If—uh—if it’s not rude to ask, where’d you get it?”

So they were diving into the touchy subjects right away, then.

Bucky shrugs, taking a bite of his plum. “It’s an experimental model by an underground guy. Hasn’t hit the market yet, so it’s supposed to stay hush-hush.”

Bit of an understatement, but Iron’s not there to be offended that he’s blaming him for HYDRA’s work, which he called primitive back in Bucharest.

Peter’s an expressive person, and his eyes are the size of saucers when he hears what he says. “You let someone without a license attach that to you?”

Not _exactly,_ but hey—details. He shrugs again. “He does good work,” he says plainly, thinking of the number Iron’s had to do on himself. Bucky’s no stranger to pain caused by the odd bit of tech someone’s taken the liberty of sticking him with, but he knows Iron’s hurts like a bitch.

Peter feeds himself another mouthful of sandwich, nearly done with it. Teenage boys, Bucky supposes. “That’s _insane_ ,” he replies, shaking his head in what Bucky pegs as disbelief. “He should try selling his stuff to one of the bigger companies. Like Stark Industries—they’ve done weapon production forever, but they’re supposedly looking into branching into other tech.” The name catches Bucky’s attention for a second, but then the kid trucks on ahead through the last of his meal. “Bioengineering’s pretty lucrative right now, but especially with that kind of tech, I bet he could sell to anyone. I mean—”

His mouth runs a million miles an hour, and Bucky understands approximately none of what comes out of it, despite the smile that overtakes the kid’s face.

By the time the kid heads out the door, talking about homework and his aunt waiting for him, Bucky is left with more questions than answers about him, but he at least knows why Iron bothers to check up on him. After a spiel like that about all sorts of things Iron knows like the back of his hand, it’s amazing he hasn’t convinced his handler to go back to the U.S. just to talk with someone who can keep up with him.

Bucky’s on the subway back to his place when he realizes that Peter stopped looking so sad the second he had someone willing to listen to him talk.

Maybe his shitty plan wasn’t so shitty after all; maybe he really can make things better.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2014_

When May calls him to dinner the night of the dump, Peter doesn’t leave his room.

After he threw up, he had to know what he’d been asking of Iron all those years, and he went plunging through the data everyone in the world seemed to be converging on for himself, searching for anything about _Iron_ , about a _Star_. Nothing came up for the first, but the second leads him to a file poorly translated into English, talking about a soldier—a Soldier is how they write it, actually—and a procedure with his arm.

It was the first clue Peter got for what he was looking for, and it ushered him down a rabbit hole because while there is nothing about _Iron_ , there is a Winter, and when Peter sees a clear picture of him, he nearly has to run back to the toilet because the _Winter_ Soldier is wearing a mask just like the one Peter still keeps under his bed.

Peter is too scared to go looking to see if there’s a file discussing the reason he got a hold of it, and he hasn’t left his bed since.

The skull and tentacles dance in front of his eyes every time he blinks, and he can’t stop thinking about Iron saying he’d kill him all those years ago if he told anyone he’d seen him. There isn’t a ton he can understand about the Winter Soldier in the dump, but from what Peter read before he became too worried about getting vomit on his keyboard, if word had gotten back to HYDRA, if Iron had just been given the order, he would’ve.

Peter has long ago learned to think of the Iron he first met, the one without a will, as a separate entity than the one he knows, but it chills him to his core to think that if he’d been any less scared of Iron delivering on his promise, he might never know the outline of the arc reactor in his chest, the exact way his eyes crinkle on the rare occasion Peter can get him to crack what almost looks like a smile.

In the beginning, Peter had wondered why he showed up time and time again. That first day after school alone, he’d been terrified, but Iron never moved to hurt him, never moved to hurt _anyone_ Peter cared about again.

And now Peter knows the odds he had to beat to make sure he was safe.

(Iron always does his best to make sure Peter has no further reason to be afraid of him, but Peter now has a vicious understanding of what it is he should be fearing.)

When May calls him for the third time and he hasn’t replied, she and Ben, who Peter heard come in but couldn’t find the energy to say hi to, appear in his doorway.

“Kiddo?” Ben asks, and Peter can—barely—find it in himself to turn to face them.

Peter’s been thinking of how he’s going to explain the lead in his limbs and fog in his head since that afternoon, but a look passes between Ben and May, and somehow he knows he doesn’t have to. May lingers at the door, but Ben comes forward, smoothing the hair off his forehead. “Hey bud,” he greets him softly. “Not feeling good?”

Peter’s too old for this, but the day’s events have taken their toll and he leans into the touch as he nods. “‘Threw up earlier,” he mumbles, and bundled under all of his covers and a few extra blankets, he must feel hot because Ben frowns, tossing another look back at May.

“I’ll start on some soup,” she says, and Peter hears her footsteps fade down the hall.

Then Ben’s eyes are back on him, and Peter somehow feels suddenly like he’s a kid who’s just lost his parents all over again, a kid who, he knows now, should’ve been lost with them. 

Peter doesn’t recognize the sound that claws its way out of his chest without warning, but Ben is there anyway, warm and soft and smelling like home. Peter buries his face in his shoulder, Ben’s arm goes to his back, and Peter allows himself to sob, for his parents, for himself, and for Iron, wherever he might be.

He falls asleep that night more tired than he can ever remember being, hoping every day after he wakes up that Iron will return from a place he now understands not wanting to talk about, but Iron has disappeared, and six months of waiting later, Peter goes on a field trip.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

Sue him—Bucky likes the kid.

It’s not like he was planning on hating him or anything, but Iron’s ambitious. Sometimes he gets ideas in his head, and in the end, they come crashing down on him. However, the kid, as far as he can tell, isn’t one of those, or at least isn’t at the moment. He decides this over another round of sandwiches because the kid sees him sitting in what’s somehow become his normal spot that next Tuesday and beams, waving before he places his order and coming over to him immediately once he’s done.

“Woah, I didn’t think you’d be here again!” he exclaims, and Bucky swallows the bite he’s chewing.

“I always come—Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”

Peter looks unreasonably excited. “Woah—me too!”

The Soldier in Bucky frowns, disapproving of giving away his habits, but Bucky does his best to shove that part of him down. He’s a teenager, not a spy, and it’s not like it was hard to figure out his schedule without being told.

“Crazy,” Bucky deadpans, but he dragged an extra chair over to his table of choice before Peter even showed up. He’s been counting on seeing him and maybe even looking forward to it if he’s honest, and as expected, Peter gets his food and settles down, already situated before he bothers to look up from the sandwich he’s unwrapping.

“You don’t mind if I sit here, right?”

“Go for it,” Bucky replies and is rewarded for his openness with a smile that encompasses Peter’s entire face. It’s not like the ones his handlers used to flash, smug and promising pain to come, or even Iron’s smirks on the rare occasion he’s allowed to go out without his mask. This is simple and warm, and Bucky appreciates it for that alone.

Like last time, conversation passes easily between the two of them. Peter doesn’t seem to mind doing the majority of the talking, and Bucky finds it soothing to be able to listen without consequence. There are no demands in the constant stream of noise that falls from Peter’s lips, just information, and there’s a simplicity in that too.

The routine flows the same way the third time they meet, and the fourth, and the fifth, and by the time the sixth rolls around, Bucky doesn’t think before raising a brow when the kid stumbles in nearly a half-hour late, panting. “Thought you were gonna’ stand me up,” he says, and Peter’s response is automatic, if a little rough around the edges from his obvious lack of breath.

“Nah, man, I’d let you know,” he says, and Bucky snorts.

Bucky finished his sandwich long before Peter showed up, but the kid sits and shoves his down so quickly, Bucky can’t help but call out to the cashier—“Can we get a second sandwich? The kid’s order.”

Peter looks at him nervously. “Bucky, I don’t have money for more,” he whispers, a little embarrassed.

They got to actually introducing themselves the second time they met up, and it’s a little weird to hear someone say his name—his real name, not anything HYDRA gave him—but it’s a weird Bucky is getting used to a lot faster than he thought he would.

Bucky shrugs, biting into the second of his plums, which he saved for when he figured the kid would eventually stumble through the door. “It’s on me.”

“But—”

“It’s five dollars, kid, don’t worry about it. ‘Sides, if you were running, you could use the extra.”

“I wasn’t _running_ —”

Bucky raises a brow. “Then why else did you show up looking like you just finished a marathon?”

And for the first time, Bucky sees something other than the sincerity that all but bleeds from everything Peter does. There’s a flicker of an entity he can’t place in his eyes, and he looks down at the table. “I ran into Spider-Man,” he says, and Bucky laughs.

He’s seen the vigilante around, sure, but that’s an awfully convenient excuse for Peter to have. It’s obvious he’s not telling the truth, even if he hadn’t decided involving Spider-Man was the way to make his alibi realistic, but Peter’s gaze rises from the table, looking surprisingly defensive. “What?” he asks, and Bucky can’t help but laugh again.

“You were with Spider-Man?”

“ _Yeah_ , I was with Spider-Man, what, do you—”

“Why?”

Peter balks, cutting off the undoubtedly terrible continuation of his lie Bucky can sense he was going into. “Huh?’

Bucky gestures with the hand holding his plum. “If you were with Spider-Man, why? Guy’s probably a little busy protecting his city, so he’d have a reason to stop and chat.”

“Well, it wasn’t really chatting.”

“No?”

 _“No_.” A pause. “He was—uh—stopping me from getting mugged.”

Bucky couldn’t hide the smirk spreading across his face if he tried. “Someone tried to mug you, a high school student with less than ten dollars to his name?”

“Yes?”

Bucky laughs again, and Peter slumps in his seat, looking one more inconvenient question from burying his face in his hands. He takes a bite of his plum. “Kid,” he says, chewing, “if you’re going to lie, at least sound confident.”

“I’m not lying!”

Bucky shoots him a look, and he deflates entirely, putting his forehead on the table with a groan. 

Bucky takes pity on him.

“It’s not like you have to tell me,” he says, and Peter glances up, cheeks red. “I’m just the guy you eat sandwiches with.”

Peter huffs a laugh of his own at that, and he straightens up, looking around the bodega. “Yeah, but they’re good sandwiches. Best in Queens.”

Bucky’s nose wrinkles. “Good thing I’m from Brooklyn.”

Peter outright _squawks_ in protest, and while Bucky still doesn’t know how Iron got to know him, he’s glad he came to him to ask for a favor.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

Peter has thought a lot about Iron since the bite.

He knows Iron’s stronger, faster, _smarter_ than should be possible, but he doesn’t know how much of that is HYDRA and what is just him. Still, Peter wonders what he’d think of him, of what he’s become. 

Would he be mad? If he was, Peter can imagine his expression, the severe furrow of his brow that would come with some kind of scolding—

 _“You have to be more_ careful.”

Just like always.

Would he just be surprised? He can imagine that reaction too, a widening of his brown eyes—

_“Woah—looks like someone’s done some growing since I’ve been gone.”_

Would he care to be with Peter at all? He doesn’t have to imagine what he looks like when he gets worked up.

 _“I don’t_ want _to talk about it.”_

Peter figured out around the time he nearly broke Iron telling him he didn’t hold his parents’ deaths against him that Iron doesn’t like himself. He’s seen it in the darkening of his eyes when he breaks a pencil Peter hands him, and he’s assumed it in the way he somehow looks ready to accept any vitriol Peter might toss his way.

Peter knows it’s irrational, but a small, cracked part of himself wonders if Iron knows how he’s changed to be more like him than before and if that’s what keeps him away. When he can, he shoves that part of him into the corner, but sometimes it slithers out, sinuous and making too much sense because Iron’s never been gone this long before; he fought with Iron the last time he saw him, and sure, he _said_ he’d be a while, but Peter didn’t think that meant over a _year._

The doubt gnaws away at him if he lets it, but Peter has plenty going on to distract him. Classes are harder this year, and what with marching band, robotics, AcaDec—it’s just a _lot_ , and one night, Ben peeks his head into his room with a smile, asking if he wants to take a break from homework to go grab a snack from the place a few blocks away that has the good gummy worms.

Peter thought he already knew death, but a convenience shop is different than a kitchen.

There’s still blood—so much blood, all over Peter’s fingers and clothes and then on his fucking face because he tries to wipe his tears—but this time, there’s no Iron to turn over the body before Peter can see the worst of it. 

Iron would’ve stopped it, he thinks, staring at the pink-tinged water circling the drain later that night and hearing May sob from across the apartment. Iron is the strongest person Peter knows, and he’s seen the countless guns and knives he keeps strapped to him. Iron would’ve done something, but he wasn’t there, and Peter froze, looking from Ben to the man pointing his gun at the cashier, and there was a gunshot, and then, and _then—_

And then Peter decides, watching the rain come down at the gravesite, that if he’s like Iron now, he’s going to do something about it.

Ben goes into the ground, and Spider-Man rises into the skyline, learning to fight, making a name for himself so that no one has to lose like Peter has.

He’ll _make_ Iron proud when he comes back, Peter decides and is none the wiser when his protector sends someone in his stead, thinking nothing of the guy who starts showing up at Delmar’s at the same times he does except that his arm’s cool and he’s interesting to talk to.

But the thing is, Bucky’s been told to watch Peter Parker, and he has no way of knowing that when Spider-Man is yanked off the streets one Wednesday night, Peter won’t have any way of letting him know he’s not going to be able to make it on Thursday.

//

_???? - 2015_

Peter wakes up, and his head hurts. He groans, shaking it as his eyes blink to clear away the groggy film come over them. He doesn’t remember going home last night, which might explain why it feels like he slept on the ground, but there’s no wind at his back, no voices drifting up from a street below.

He sits up. He can feel something hum at the base of his spine like has become normal since the bite, but he’s still too out of it to understand what’s causing it. He looks around, trying to process, to remember. He’s not anywhere he knows, and he’s not outside, that much is clear from the grey walls surrounding him. The only thing coming to mind from the night before is that he’d been on patrol when he’d felt the same tingle at his back and then a pain in his neck, but that was just a bug, right? Sometimes the feeling—whatever it is—gets worked up over little stuff, but try as he might, Peter can’t remember anything past that.

He looks down at himself. He’s wearing stained, grey clothes he knows for a fact aren’t his, but more than that, he doesn’t remember putting them on. And if he didn’t go home last night, that leads him to another, far more terrifying question—where’s his suit?

Peter’s not Captain America, not even the agent they said dropped the SHIELD files—Black Widow—but he’s put more than one person in jail.

What if they find him? What if they find _May? Shit_ —does May know where he is? How long has he been gone? The questions pile up faster than he can think of answers because this _can’t be happening_ , but he’s in a room without a window, and he doesn’t know how he got there, and he doesn’t fucking remember going home—how many innocent explanations for this can there be?

The breath is caught in Peter’s chest. He can’t even hear anything, which might explain the slow, constant crawling of his skin panic is making him more aware of. Peter’s world hasn’t been truly quiet since the bite, and it’s just one more thing to add to the fear blocking up his throat, but then—

Footsteps. 

Peter stands, not sure if it’s safer to be closer to or farther from the door and settling for being in the middle. This can’t be what he knows it has to be, but the steps are getting closer, louder.

 _No, no, no no, no,_ please _no—_

The door to the dingy room that he’s being kept in swings open, and Peter thinks his heart might pound out of his chest as it reveals two men dressed in black staring him down and looking pleased to be doing so.

“Well, if it isn’t the little bug,” one muses, and _shit shit shit they know_ says his racing mind.

Peter, however, is somewhat used to being talked to like that, what with his latest hobby, and he tips his chin up, using all his willpower to muster an easy grin. “Hey guys,” he says, pretending this is just another night on the streets, that he’s a push of a button away from safety far above where any thug can reach. “Don’t suppose you’d mind telling me where I am? I’ve got this horrible crick in my neck, and I’d love to get home and get some ice on—”

“Chatty,” the other one cuts him off, and Peter has the distinct sensation that he’s being studied, that he really is a bug under a microscope. “How long do you think he’ll last?”

Peter doesn’t like that question, but Spider-Man wouldn’t stop talking—Spider-Man would _escape._

“Is that a no? That’s a shame,” he continues, inching closer to the entrance. “Gotta’ say, not loving the welcome party, but—”

One of the men lunges, and there’s a fist slammed into his cheek, a knee planted into his stomach. Peter cuts off with a wheeze, doubling over in shock.

He’s been hit before, but this isn’t some guy with a dull knife that decides he wants to make a quick buck. This is someone who’s obviously been trained for this, and _Christ,_ it hurts

“Shut _up,”_ one says, but Peter’s never been very good at that.

“Creative comeback, dude,” he mumbles, and that’s what gets him a kick to the side, sending him to the ground.

“Oh, I’m gonna’ fucking love seeing you get taken apart,” he hears one of them hiss, and that might be even less promising than what they said earlier.

Peter doesn’t bother responding to that, but then calloused hands wrench his hands forward. Peter feels something cold wrap around his wrists, and when he looks up, he sees that _something_ is a set of handcuffs. He doesn’t have long to think about that, though, because just as fast as the men put him on the floor, they pick him back up, grabbing the back of his shirt to drag him to his feet.

A low, cold voice spits into his ear. _“Walk.”_

Peter’s not a fan of taking things sitting down, but if talking back got him knocked around, he’s not sure it’ll be worth it to refuse them. Walking’s just walking, right? He can do that, no big deal, or at least that’s what he tells himself, suddenly missing the room he woke up in. However small and foreboding it was, it wasn’t this, which is two men leading him down the hall he still can’t hear anything outside of.

He tries tugging on the cuffs, but one of the men—guards, is that right? Is that what he should be calling the people apparently in charge of him in this shitty, one-hundred-percent-terrifying situation?—laughs. “Dream on, kid. We’ve got plenty of experience handling enhanceds. You’re not getting out of those without a key.”

Peter doesn’t want to believe them, but when he tries again, just to be safe, the metal doesn’t budge.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit—_

They’ve taken a thousand twists and turns by the time Peter can finally pick something other than their footsteps up, and he cranes his ears, hoping for anything that might tell him what the hell is going on. All he can catch are faint thumps, maybe a few cries of pain, neither of which are reassuring.

He looks around, searching for anything he could use as a weapon if he ran, but the walls are bereft, his hands are cuffed, and each of his guards has at least a pistol on them. If he makes a break for it, they’ll shoot him down without a problem, and then he’ll be kidnapped and injured, and he’ll really be fucked. It’s better to wait, or at least that’s what he tells himself in an attempt at calming the feeling of his spine, which is becoming nearly painful as his handlers close in on a door at the end of a hall, a door Peter can hear the sound coming from.

“Straight to the Soldier, huh?” one of his guards asks, and the other shrugs.

“Kid’s apparently got better skills than average. No use waiting for him to beat the others when they already know he was worth the effort of bringing in.”

They talk about him like he isn’t there, but Peter’s too busy trying to process what they’re saying to care. The soldier? What do they mean the soldier? He just wants to know what’s going on, but then the guards are swiping something over a scanner set into the wall and leading him through to where the sounds he’s been hearing since they made the turn into the hall have finally stopped.

Peter looks around, at the bare, concrete walls that seem to be a trend in whatever this place is, at the racks of weapons to the side, and then at the focal point of the room, a man standing above a form on the ground, a form that Peter can hear crying, can see shaking from where their body peeks out from behind the man’s solid silhouette.

Someone drags the trembling shape out of a different door, but Peter can’t take his eyes off the man. He isn’t facing him, but there’s something about the way he holds himself that raises every hair on Peter’s body straight up. He can’t place it, not the strangely familiar figure he cuts, not the tension in every line of his limbs, until he turns around at hearing one of the guards call out, shoving Peter forward.

“Fresh meat, Soldier!” he crows, and as Peter stumbles into what he’s just realized is a fighting ring, he can’t stop the whisper that leaves his mouth in confusion, in _horror._

He never sees him with his mask anymore, but time has not fogged Peter’s memory of his eyes, half the room away but just as startled as Peter’s own.

 _“Iron?”_ he asks, and the world falls silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao I realized I have to do stuff tomorrow so you guys get a chapter + cliffhanger early enjoy


	6. Chapter 6

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_   


Peter has a knack for unpredictability. The Soldier knows this intimately. He knows it from the way he stopped his tears by showing him his arc reactor the second time they spoke. He knows it from the unimpressed looks he receives when he tells him things HYDRA holds sacred. He knows it from the feeling of his tiny arms wrapped around his body that has done despicable, evil things, but even he should not have been able to worm his way into HYDRA.

So how can he possibly be standing in front of the Soldier, his hands locked in cuffs, whispering the name he gave him?

The Soldier freezes, his handler freezes, even the stupid-looking grunts in the corner fucking _freeze._

Nobody knows his name when they bring them to him, and the most they leave with, assuming they leave at all, is _Soldier._ The Soldier understands his shock and confusion—he doubts Peter even knows where he is, who he’s with—but his words have guaranteed the two of them a world of trouble.

“What did you say?” his handler asks, her normally cruel voice slowed with disbelief.

“I—” Peter looks desperately to the Soldier, but the Soldier can give him nothing. His muzzle is in place, and his handler will see any motion he tries to make. He can only stare, hoping Peter understands all the reassurance he tries to shove into a single look. “Nothing,” he says, trying to step back, but Peter has never been a good liar. Even if he was, his face betrays him, from the tears rising in his eyes he can’t take off the Soldier to the horrified gape of his mouth. 

The Soldier has hated his muzzle for as long as he can remember, but he is grateful, just this once, that his expression is hidden largely from sight because he’s positive it screams just how badly he wants to take Peter and run, take him far, far away from this terrible place he has suddenly ended up in.

He doesn’t look hurt, not like the normal ones they bring him, skinny and wild-eyed, desperate for a chance to prove themselves, but HYDRA has him, don’t they? How long will that last?

The only saving grace the Soldier can find amidst his racing, frantic mind is that they wouldn’t have brought him to fight for the sole purpose of exposing their knowledge of the Soldier’s disobedience. But if he’s been brought to a match, that means—

One of the guards shoves him forward, and he makes a soft yelp of surprise. “Come on, _Spider-Man._ She asked you a question—let’s get a real answer.”

—he’s somehow been enhanced.

_No._

“I don’t know him! I just—I—” 

His panic is as clear as day on his face, and the Soldier knows he’s realized his mistake. It’s too late for that though. Now HYDRA knows, and they circle viciously, snapping at the blood in the water. The Soldier’s world, however small and spartan it might be, is crashing down around him. It is one thing to take a punishment for himself, but Peter is here and breakable, and Iron would do anything to keep him in one piece. If he’s been enhanced, that means he’s become _useful_ , and that sends a bolt of terror, unlike any he’s felt in months, through the Soldier.

He knows his own pain. He knows his own sacrifice, but this—seeing Peter hopelessly backed into a corner—is new and terrifying in the alien, inescapable swath of dread that accompanies it.

“You just _what?”_ one agent presses, his beady eyes shining with something the Soldier knows by now is satisfaction. The other reaches for his gun, and it is all the Soldier can do to stay put. Their cover is already partially blown, but the minute the Soldier reacts, it’s over.

From behind him, the Soldier hears his handler speak and feels his existence grind to a halt, everything coming to balance on her confident, sharp practicality. _“Enough,”_ she snaps. “There’s no need to waste time with the kid.” Her eyes, as dangerous as the rest of her, slide to the Soldier. “Take off your mask, Soldier. Break it if you need to.”

The Soldier obeys without thought, though his mind screams that he’s leaving himself vulnerable, that he’s going to ruin it. Cool air hits his lips, and the Soldier swears he can taste blood when he breathes in. His handler holds out a hand, and he dumps the muzzle into her waiting palm, like a pet giving their master its chain.

She nods, calm—serene, even. “Soldier,” she begins, “how does this boy know you?”

The Soldier knows his mind, fractured, disorganized as it is, and for many of his other rebellions, he has safeguards placed within it, locked in the faults between the Soldier and the Iron Soldier. Even for most of his visits to Peter, he has made sure that they come when the Soldier has most of his consciousness intact, even if it’s buried under his inability to disobey.

But the day before they sent him for the Parkers, the Soldier was given his words.

He can’t stop the answer that leaps off his tongue, hoarse but terribly honest. “I eliminated his parents on a mission when he was young. He didn’t witness the killing and was left alive. I snuck into the home through his bedroom window and spoke with him then.”

The Soldier can see Peter flinch out of the corner of his eye, but he’s more focused on something crackling in the pale, controlled expanse of his handler’s face. The Soldier thinks that if he didn’t want to claw her eyes out, he might think she’s pretty, but then the crackle turns into a roar, and the Soldier sees it for what it is _—glee._

“That’s a long memory,” she muses.

The Soldier says nothing, too used to the weight of his muzzle to realize he can respond until she’s speaking again, tossing a glance back at Peter, who has lost all color in his face and is staring at the Soldier like he’s some kind of apparition—a ghost.

“But I suppose it’d be hard to forget the person who did that to you. So tell me, _Iron,_ do you think he’s gotten stronger since then?”

Peter’s name for him feels mangled in her cruel mouth, but the Soldier does his best to remain impassive. If she thinks the last time he saw him was when he killed his parents—fine. Good, as a matter of fact. The Soldier can pretend, and maybe she’ll lose interest.

“He’s here, isn’t he?” he replies, and as soon as the word leaves his mouth, he knows they’re too dry. He expects to be struck for his disrespect, but the blow never comes. 

Instead, the giddiness on his handler’s face grows, turning the corners of her smile into barbed wire, the cut of her cheeks into razor blades. “You’re right,” she agrees, “but let’s check—just to be sure.”

The Soldier can already feel a boulder settle into his stomach, thinking about laying a hand on Peter, but the crackle turns into a spark of electricity, and when his handler opens her mouth again, the careful balance he thought he might be able to maintain is annihilated, sending him spiraling into a thousand whittled shards.

“Gilded.”

No— _no._ Not him, not Peter, who the Soldier is supposed to protect, who he kept safe for so _long,_ only to have everything come crashing down.

“Revolution. Two.”

He lunges for his handler, but he’s desperate, which makes him sloppy. The swipe of his fist goes wide, and she dances out of reach with a savage grin, knowing the words, though she speaks them in a language they had to teach him, slow him down as his two consciences muddy. 

“Exchange. Titanium. Nineteen.”

The Soldier yells, trying again. He’ll do anything, take any punishment so long as they don’t make him this. Peter was never meant for HYDRA. He deserves warm blankets and rooftops full of stars, not his pitiless touch that will _shatter_ him if given the order, but his handler dodges again.

“Seven. Rise.”

She’s nearly finished, and the Soldier draws a blade, making furious, brutal slashes through the air that do _nothing_ as his own body betrays him, his arms slowing in their movements, his feet planting themselves where they are.

“Trinket.”

The Soldier would give up his light if it meant he could stop her, but his mind has already forgotten who he is trying to protect, only remembering that they are important.

The Soldier wants to scream, to destroy, to raze everything that has ever made him this monstrosity to the ground—

“Conductor.”

The fire leaches from his limbs in a fraction of a second, and the Iron Soldier waits for his commands.

//

It’s been a long time since Peter has feared Iron.

He might not think himself worthy of forgiveness, but he’s known for a long, long time that Iron—the real Iron—is not the version of him he first met. He saw glimpses of the real Iron through his blank, unfeeling stare—he wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t—but that was a different creature entirely. That’s what Iron _thinks_ he is, but Peter knows better.

It’s part of what makes it so horrifying to see the fight go out of his body, so much angrier than Peter had realized, to see his shoulders roll back and the light die in his eyes.

Iron has always carried a certain heaviness to him, a weight Peter could sense long before he put together what it was, but he has always pushed through before, clawed his way through the might of a storm on his shoulders to reach Peter with an offer to help. Now, that heaviness has gone from a burden to a source of strength, something that’s sending danger zinging along Peter’s spine with the methodical flex of his fist, the unblinking burn of his stare.

It’s been a long time since Peter has feared Iron, but he’s coming to a barrelling realization that he should’ve thought more about what Iron meant when he told him _“When certain people tell me to do things, I have to listen.”_

The woman behind Iron has been smiling for a long time now, and Peter almost can’t comprehend how she can control him. She doesn’t _look_ like she should be able to. Iron’s not that tall, but Peter studies at him and can see steely power rippling under his expression that somehow holds nothing but promises destruction at the same time. Her lithe form looks waifish next to Iron like this, but the sound of the harsh, foreign words she had said and their effect on Iron are undeniable.

Iron has always been the strongest person Peter knows, and she turned him into this in a matter of seconds.

Maybe it’s not Iron he should be scared of.

As if she can sense his fear, the woman juts her chin up as a guard quickly undoes Peter’s cuffs and steps away again. “I’ll allow him to stop when you tell me the truth of how you know him.”

Peter hardly has time to think about what she means before she says something else in what he thinks is the same language as before and Iron tears into him without so much as a pause.

He barely manages to block his first blow, which comes at him so hard and fast it rattles his teeth from where he has a hand around his fist. Surely, he’ll stop, right? This is _Iron_ —Peter’s Iron, who has seen him cry, who has bared his heart to him to dry his tears. Iron would never hurt Peter, Iron would hurt _himself_ before he hurt Peter, but then there’s a second jab headed into his stomach that Peter’s mind warns him about—just not soon enough for him to dodge.

Peter thought the guard’s knee was bad, but this is so much worse.

The air leaves his lungs in a violent wheeze as Peter feels his ribs—at least two, probably more—crack in real time, and he reacts on instinct, lashing out as hard as he can to just get the pain to _stop._

Iron flies across the room, but he manages to roll into a stop that looks more poised than injured. Peter whimpers softly, cradling his side, but there’s no time to be hurt, not when Iron is coming at him again, moving so much faster than Peter realized he could.

He matches his attacks this time, loathe to hurt Iron but knowing, now, the sentiment isn’t returned. If he doesn’t fight, Iron will literally shred him to pieces, and Peter’s already panting, doing his best to bite back his screams but failing when Iron’s brutal hits land back on his torso. He seems to latch onto his pain too, targeting where he can see he’s weak.

He tries to beg him—

“Iron—Iron, _please_ , it’s me, it’s _Peter—”_

—but the distraction of it only gives Iron more opportunities to attack.

Peter knew Iron was strong, knew he was fast, but there’s more to what makes him lethal than that. 

It’s only logical that he’d know what he’s doing, but Peter has never thought about how much experience he clearly has. Peter, who can normally dance circles around his opponents, feels like a colt stumbling to its feet for the first time. Maneuvers that have ended a thousand street fights are shut down faster than he can blink with dexterity that makes his head spin, and that’s not even accounting for how _ruthless_ Iron is like this. 

His pain doesn’t matter, his exhaustion. He keeps coming at Peter without a single hint of recognition in his eyes that are so much kinder crinkled with laughter. It doesn’t matter that Peter’s putting his everything into blows that would break a normal person, doesn’t even seem to faze him. The most he gets for his troubles is a hiss for a particularly nasty hit or two, and even then, it’s over in a second, putting Peter on the back foot as Iron prods, presses, pushes him to defeat strike by methodical strike.

Peter wants to cry—wants to scream—but there’s no time for that, not now, not even to try and reason with him, reach past whatever the woman has done to change Iron to what she calls him—the Soldier. Somewhere inside him, yes, there’s a creature howling in protest—

_(How dare they do this Iron? How dare they force him to be something he’s not?)_

—but that creature is getting the shit kicked out of it by something wearing a face it cares about, and it _hurts._

“You’re lucky I haven’t asked the Star to grab a weapon,” the woman hums, and Peter ducks and rolls from a fist that cracks the concrete where his head was a moment previous.

Peter almost forgot about that, the soft, indulging secret Iron told him years ago— _“Sometimes, the people I work for call me the Star.”_

Against any other opponent, Peter would let a retort roll off his tongue, but if he drops his guard to do so, Iron’s going to rip him apart.

A lot is going on in his head, but even his reaction to the woman— _how_ dare _she talk about Iron like he’s not even there_ —is overpowered by the constant thrum of his spine, turning into a throb, now. It tells him exactly where to dodge, but even if Iron isn’t tiring, Peter is. His body and his senses are used to quick, messy scuffles, not this—not straining to make it to a next step, a next duck, just so Iron’s harsh, practiced hands don’t maul him the second they get the chance.

“You know what you have to do to stop this,” she adds, though the words are little more than background noise to Peter’s singing pulse

He can’t even try to go on the offense. The energy for that is gone, lost somewhere in the hits Iron doesn’t think before landing, ferocious, efficient, and effortlessly unyielding, but if he caves, if he gives the woman what she wants, how much more trouble is Iron going to be in because of him? Because he couldn’t shut his big mouth, because Iron has done everything to make sure he’s kept safe from those he works for but Peter has a talent for ruining what he touches, just like that night at the store?

Peter shrieks as he stumbles and Iron gets a hand around his wrist, squeezing with the intent to break as he yanks him back. He manages to get out of his grip, though only barely, and Iron must sense his pain, his mounting exhaustion, because he starts pushing him back, darting out to block Peter’s escape routes as he corners him, as if _Peter_ is the one who needs to be contained.

If he leaves him with nowhere to run, Peter’s screwed, and in one last, petrified attempt, he tries to leap over him.

He is suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, less than a single moment where he’s in his element, and then Iron’s hand latches around his ankle and rams his body into the floor.

The crack of his head against the ground alone makes him shout, and he can’t get back to his feet fast enough. Iron’s fist slams into his face, and stars explode before Peter’s eyes.

Everything _hurts_ , and when Peter tries to put up his hands to stop a second blow, they’re knocked aside with what would be a light slap, except nothing about Iron right now is light, especially on the wrist he already got ahold of. A faint gurgle that might have been a cry of pain before the blows to his head follows, and Peter dazedly watches Iron draw back his fist again, his face marked with a spray of Peter’s blood and not fazed in the slightest by it.

Iron’s going to kill him, Peter thinks. Iron’s going to kill him, and May’s never going to know what happened because he doesn’t think this is a place people come back from. Iron’s going to kill him just like he killed his parents, and Peter can’t do anything about it—except he can. The woman said he could stop this if he told her the truth, and Peter just wants to be okay.

“I’ll—”

The fist comes down, and Peter wonders if his head is bleeding. It must be, right? Because his hair feels wet, and something slips down the back of his neck. Is that blood or sweat? Maybe both, Peter muses, but he’ll have to find his answer later. Right now, he has to talk, or Iron’s going to beat him to death right there.

“I’ll t—”

Again.

Oh god, Iron’s never going to forgive himself if he kills him.

“I’ll tell you,” he finally manages, unsure how loud he is, only that his own voice is ringing in his ears, everything is ringing, and he can see one more blow coming, and this is going to be it, Peter can’t take anymore—

“Soldier, stop.”

The hit never comes, but Peter is falling—fading. He thinks his fingers might twitch, wanting the strong shoulders he knows how to cry on, wanting a glimpse of the light he’s come to find comforting, but he’s tired—so, so tired—and the blackness edging at the corners of his vision swallows him whole.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

Peter wakes up with a killer headache.

The first thing he does with his newfound consciousness is look around. He can remember—sort of—what got him his headache in the first place, and though he doesn’t think he could fight off another attack if he tried, he at least wants to know if one’s coming. So, his eyes sweep the room, but it seems similar to everything else he’s seen—grey, though the fact that he’s in a bed is surprising. The IV stuck in his arm is even more so, but if this is HYDRA’s hospital set up, Peter has a few objections, beginning with the fact that his room does not look particularly _clean._

He tries to sit up, but Peter gasps at the bolt of pain that comes from his ribs at the motion.

That’s right, he remembers, and shit, there are the tears he was too busy trying to stay alive to let fall before. Iron put his fist in his stomach, anywhere he could get it, really.

Does he know, Peter wonders. Does he remember what happens when he’s like that?

He thinks of how he screamed, of how he couldn’t even really muster the energy to fight him, in the end, just had to lay there and let his blows rain down, and he hopes not.

The tears are rolling now, steady and induced from a nauseating combination of panic and horror and pain and guilt and fear and every terrible thing Peter’s ever known rolled up into one ugly mass that sits at the back of his tongue, bitter and refusing to be swallowed.

Peter’s spine has been buzzing since he woke, which he takes as a reminder that he’s still not safe, even if he’s apparently been cleaned up a bit, but it isn’t loud enough to tell him there’s any reason he can’t have a moment for himself in this place where they took who Peter thought was trustworthy and twisted into him into something he’s not.

Peter’s face is crumpling when he hears a camera focusing. 

_No._

They don’t get to see this, the permission he gives himself to crack without any eyes on him, whether they’re in the room or not, and he turns to bury his face in his pillow.

None of this was supposed to happen, but it’s too late now. Peter will just have to figure it out because this can’t be it for him. He’ll escape—he _has_ to—and when he does, Iron’s coming with. He swears as much to himself then and there, and eventually, the tears stop coming, stopping Peter from boiling over even more but still leaving him on high.

Peter takes a deep breath, lifting his head and trying his best to make himself comfortable despite the full-body _ache_ enveloping him, but not a minute later, a man walks through the door.

Peter doesn’t jump, exactly, what with the warning he receives from a shock of his sixth sense, but it still makes his skin crawl to think that, from what he can tell, someone was watching, waiting for him to finish so they could proceed with what they want.

The man walks casually, and though a few guards enter with him, they stay by the door. 

The buzz of his spine goes up a notch.

Peter’s mind races, sorting through the information from articles and files he read years ago. If this is HYDRA—and it has to be, if Iron’s there—then there’s a good chance the man got exposed with the data dump. As it is, his face niggles at something in the back of Peter’s mind, but it’s not until he smiles that it clicks.

Alexander Pierce isn’t wearing a suit these days, which Peter supposes makes sense, given that his cover as a beloved—almost Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning—public figure has been blown, but he still radiates a politician’s assured, unflappable charm.

(Why is Alexander Pierce himself bothering with him?)

“How are you doing, Peter?” he asks, sitting at the edge of his bed.

It’s a motion that feels altogether too intimate, but Peter’s chest is made of needles at the moment. He can’t sit up properly, nevermind make him back up a few feet. He settles for keeping his eyes on him, trusting his sixth sense to tell him if the guards try anything. 

“Peachy,” he deadpans, and the man nods, looking almost understanding.

Peter would really, really like it if he’d get further away from him.

“You know, you got off alright. When the Star is given his orders, we usually can’t stop him until it’s too late, but I’m told you lasted a good while before he got ahold of you. That’s impressive, Peter.”

There it is—his name again, and it occurs to Peter what Pierce means by using it—HYDRA knows him, has him.

(And he has nothing left that he can hide from them.)

It’s not surprising that they’ve figured out who he is—facial recognition tech is getting more advanced all the time—but it still makes ice form in the pit of Peter’s stomach.

“Glad you think so.”  
  


He should probably shut it, but if Peter had good self-preservation instincts, he wouldn’t fight crime in some sweats he picked up from a thrift shop with leftover birthday money.

Pierce doesn’t seem irritated.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of talking to someone with your spirit, Peter, but that’s not what I’m here for. I’ve heard about that deal the Star’s handler struck with you. She called him off, so it’s your turn to hold up your end of the bargain.” 

Peter forgot about that, and maybe it makes a little more sense, now, why he’s been graced with the presence of someone so clearly positioned at the top of the food chain. Peter jerks his chin up, however, in a challenge. “And what happens if I don’t?” he asks, testing the waters of his situation.

Pierce shrugs, picking a piece of lint off his shirt. “Then we can bring the Star back to finish what he started, but I don’t think either of you two wants that.”

Peter’s expression pinches. He knew there had to be some kind of ultimatum, but he thought that maybe he could fight it. As is, meeting Pierce’s calm, expectant stare, he doesn’t doubt what he says.

That doesn’t mean he likes it.

Peter knows his reluctance is clear on his face, but he still doesn’t expect Pierce to speak again without his words being some kind of threat. To his surprise, he receives an attempt at _justification,_ as if Peter will ever accept causing Iron pain.

“He’s already in line to receive punishment. He fought against his handler, and we know he circumvented his orders by leaving you alive when he was assigned to your parents. You’re just filling in the gaps for us.” A pause. And then, a bit lower. “And if you make this easy, we can see about getting you some painkillers.”

Peter doesn’t have a choice, not if he wants to live and not if he wants to keep his blood off Iron’s hands. He tells Pierce everything he wants to know, despising every second of his helplessness, and when he’s finished, Peter hates the relief of the numbness that sweeps through his veins and tows him back under the depths he’s only just emerged from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fact that you all had to know this was coming makes me feel marginally less bad about it but also f for peter lmao


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: vomit mention and fairly graphic descriptions of human experimentation

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_ **  
**

The Soldier’s handler is pissed. That in and of itself is not unusual. The Soldier, however much he may be forced to comply, makes her job as difficult as he can given that she has a neat code that makes him do whatever the hell she asks if he pushes too far, but she’s really, _really_ pissed, which the Soldier supposes isn’t a surprise. She prides herself on her control over him, which she’s never said but the Soldier sees in the curl of her lips when he follows her commands. Finding out that he hasn’t been as obedient as she’d thought is taking its toll, not to mention both of them are distinctly aware of the fact that HYDRA doesn’t tolerate failure.

The Soldier hopes she rots for it.

His normal hatred has been sharpened to a wicked point. He woke up in the chair with nothing but Peter’s terrified face lodged in his memory to explain what happened after he said his name, and he knows it’s her fault.

His old handlers have nearly always needed the book to maintain control of him, but she’s memorized his switch, memorized it in more than one language, even. She still keeps the book on her, tucked into one of the larger pockets of her combat gear, but she only bothers pulling it out when she wants the Soldier to know what’s coming.

She stands to his left currently, face drawn tight as she faces the ring of agents lining the room.

They’re waiting, and the Soldier thinks he knows who for, even if he can’t quite remember his name, his face. 

They’ve been lax with the Soldier recently, but before that, there were more wipes than he thinks he could keep track of even if he wasn’t made to forget them.

As expected, the door slides open to reveal the man the Soldier knows the essence of, if nothing else. He looks scragglier than the Soldier thinks is normal, his hair not combed back perfectly, his face a little dirty.

The Soldier suspects there’s a reason for that, even if his grasp of the details of why are fuzzy.

More people come in with the man, people who might be scientists, doctors, something of the sort, but the Soldier has learned long ago to keep his focus on the biggest player in the room.

The man steps closer, and though the Soldier knows he shouldn’t—for Peter’s sake, if nothing else, and fuck, he nearly forgot with the man’s entrance that Peter is somewhere in the base—he’s seized by the inexplicable urge to spit at him, strike out, do anything to show that they don’t own him, no matter how they’ve tried.

He shoves the urge down and instead makes sure there is gunpowder in his glare when he meets the man’s eyes.

He doesn’t smile when he speaks, which the Soldier thinks might be surprising. “Your little project back there was very helpful,” he says, and the Soldier feels like someone punched another hole in his chest—right over his heart, this time.

The Soldier’s lips thin, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what all the man knows—Pierce? Is that his name? It sounds right, sounds more fitting now that he’s heard his voice. The Soldier goes with it.

“Ten years worth of violating your mission protocol, and for what, some kid?” Pierce pauses, his pale eyes searching the Soldier’s face calculatingly. “It doesn’t seem your style, to tell you the truth, but Peter was very descriptive. You did a number on him, Soldier.”

The Soldier already knew, really. He never comes out of being the Iron Soldier without carnage, but though he can’t remember, he can _imagine_ —Peter sprawled out on the ground, the slew of merciless blows that kept him there, and after everything, being betrayed.

He did betray him, didn’t he? All that time—ten _years_ , Pierce had said, though the Soldier has no way to keep track for himself—he spent trying to shelter him, and now—

The Soldier is very good at masking his thoughts, but he can’t stop himself from gritting his teeth. 

Pierce keeps pushing. “Really, his face alone?” He winces. “And then his ribs? Poor kid can barely move, but our doctors say he’s healing fast—faster than you, even. What would you know about that, Soldier?”

A bolt of fear knifes through the Soldier but not for himself. HYDRA loves taking interesting things apart and seeing what makes them tick. He’s helped them scratch that itch before, in fact. If Peter’s enhancements are noteworthy, that puts him in more danger, but the Soldier genuinely doesn’t know anything about them. Maybe if he could remember the fight they had—the details of which, given to him by Pierce, will haunt him—he would be able to figure out more. As is, he stares blankly at Pierce.

“I never knew him as an enhanced,” he says. His muzzle hasn’t reappeared since he fought Peter, and this is the first time the Soldier thinks he’s ever missed it.

Pierce exchanges a look with his handler, who’s changed her position just enough so that the Soldier can’t see her face anymore, and then comes back to the Soldier. “Interesting,” he muses, “interesting.” He’s still staring, but there’s a shift in him, in how he leans forward a little farther, in how his voice pitches a little lower, that lets the Soldier know they’re done with the prelude. 

There’s more to this than taunting before they wipe him, then.

“The thing, Soldier, is that even if you don’t know Peter for the reasons we think he’s interesting, HYDRA doubts he’s the only way you’ve been malfunctioning.”

 _Malfunctioning,_ like he’s a machine.

The Soldier’s brilliant mind churns, conjuring images of Peter’s battered face, him laid up in a hospital bed because no matter how the Soldier imagines he tried to fend him off, he kept coming, a juggernaut with the sole purpose of tearing him apart.

Maybe Pierce is right.

“So tell us, Soldier, what else have you gotten up to?”

His jaw clenches, twinging painfully from resisting the order. For as much pain as his absence has caused him, the Soldier would never wish for Winter to be recaptured. Winter was the Asset before the Soldier was a twinkle in HYDRA’s eye, and he deserves his freedom. The Soldier says nothing, raising his head in an unspoken challenge.

Pierce sighs. “Fine then.” He shoots a glance to a miscellaneous guard, one of many faces the Soldier will never know but hates all the same in a blurry stream of rifles and eyes that follow him in equal parts fascination and derision. “Go get the boy.”

The Soldier has never known what it means to have someone close enough to be used against him, and the threat comes as an unpleasant reminder of all that HYDRA has in its tendrils.

It’s not ideal, but the Soldier is a paranoid creature. He planned for this eventuality from the moment he decided to find Peter a stand-in Soldier, and though it hasn’t occurred exactly the way he imagined, he’s smart enough to make it work. He can sacrifice this for Peter.

“Wait,” he grits out, and Pierce holds up a hand, halting the agent in his tracks. “I’ll tell you.”

There’s the smile Pierce was missing earlier. “How convenient,” he says dryly. “The floor’s all yours, Soldier.”

His eyes narrow, and once more, the Soldier is possessed by the urge to see Pierce bleed. However, like before, he manages to smother it as he opens his mouth.

“I found and spoke to the Winter Soldier after his escape.”

The Soldier can all but taste the ripple of tension that ricochets around the room, but despite the ice that spreads over Pierce’s expression, he doesn’t pause.

“Where?”

“Bucharest.” He even adds the address for good measure. He knows Winter. If he hasn’t left the city entirely, he’ll be long gone from his apartment, won’t risk being found again.

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“When was the last time you saw a calendar around here?” The words leap off his tongue with no small amount of venom, but though they earn him a slap from Pierce, nothing more comes of them, everything hinging too much on the fact that HYDRA sees an opportunity to recapture their missing, more compliant Soldier.

“How?” Pierce moves on, and the Soldier watches a muscle in his cheek twitch with a faint sense of amusement. 

“I used a computer in my assignment’s possession.”

“That’s it?”

The Soldier raises a brow. Who do they think he is?

Another slap, but the Soldier can hear Pierce’s breathing get heavier with agitation. He motions to another agent. “Bring a computer.”

“From where, si—”

“Just _bring it.”_

The agent all but runs out with his tail between his legs, and the Soldier works to suppress a grin of his own. He rarely gets to tug on Pierce’s strings, but he enjoys it every time. He needs things to go a step farther though for Pierce to truly be his own undoing.

“When the computer gets here, you’re going to find the Asset again and help bring him in.”

The Soldier would go as far as to say Pierce sounds _rattled,_ and he thinks he understands why. The longer he hears his voice, the more the things he’s said before come back, little snippets of conversation.

_“Sir, if we push him too far, we could lose his intelligence—”_

_“All we have left is the Star—now it’s his turn to pick up where the Asset left off.”_

Pierce chose a Soldier over a genius after Winter ran, and he chose wrong, leaving the recovery of Winter to those who proved incompetent. It almost makes the Soldier preen with satisfaction, especially with the answer he has to give for his request.

“I can’t,” the Soldier replies simply.

The agent who Pierce had sent to get Peter earlier moves to finish his task, but Pierce stops him again. “Don’t bother. It’ll take too long for this.” He motions to the Soldier’s handler instead. “The book,” he orders, and she scrambles to obey, fingers fumbling over zippers until she manages to find it.

It’d be faster to just let his handler do it, but Pierce isn’t looking for efficiency right now. He’s just discovered that he sabotaged himself, that the key weapon to his arsenal isn’t nearly as tamed as he’d thought. Pierce is looking for control.

The sight of yellow leather makes the Soldier tense on instinct, and as always, the backward check on its cover feels somehow like a taunt.

In a moment, it won’t matter.

The Soldier closes his eyes, allowing the words to wash over him and take his consciousness out of the picture. For the moment, it’s best that way, and when the agent returns with Pierce’s computer, he shoves it into the Iron Soldier’s hands.

“Find the Asset,” he spits, and the Iron Soldier sets out to fulfill the order, but though he tries, most of the information he needs has been placed beyond his reach, whether by encryption he can’t work past despite his best efforts or the fact that it’s just not there.

The Iron Soldier frowns, trying again and again, but someone has gone in and hidden him.

The Soldier would be peeved if somebody bested him, but the Iron Soldier is a simpler creature who sees things for what they are: a mission failure.

The Iron Soldier does not remember them, but here are the secrets the Soldier has been counting on.

One, the Soldier has been discovered trying to escape two times and faced the consequences. When he found Winter, he knew he could fail again, and he covered his tracks. The Soldier could _maybe_ dreg up the information he buried with a little ingenuity and some very specific instructions to force his hand, but the puppet the words leave him as only has the ability to follow commands—to _do,_ not _create._

And two, the Iron Soldier has to have instruction—a mission. Within that mission, he spares no details, but the Soldier was not following orders when he sought out Winter, and the Iron Soldier cares only for what is useful to the cause he serves.

The Soldier’s mind is brilliant, and it has hidden Winter away in its cracks, aided by the fact that HYDRA would never think that a Soldier with a will might be more useful than one without.

The Soldier’s one regret for planning on becoming the Iron Soldier is that he can’t remember Pierce’s face when he told him Winter can’t be found.

The Iron Soldier sees, though. He sees, and he follows the orders that come next—shouts, _demands_ for him to bring Winter back—only to fail.

“You’ve done it before, you can do it again,” a man seethes.

Has he?

“It is beyond my abilities, sir,” he replies. He is struck for that, but he does not flinch.

 _“Do it,_ or the boy dies,” the man threatens, and there is something in his eyes that the Iron Soldier clocks as being—not entirely, just a little—unhinged.

“The boy?”

He doesn’t remember a boy. He remembers nothing before the man gave him the computer. There might be something—brown eyes, tear-stained cheeks—but the image flits out of reach before he can capture it.

The man stares at him, and at last, he seems to accept what the Iron Soldier has said. “He’s useless,” he mutters.

An agent standing off to the side shifts on his feet before he tries to speak. “Sir, do you want the boy eliminated?”

The man—not his handler, but still important, if the Iron Soldier understands correctly—sighs, but the sound is harsh. “No. No—he’s too powerful an enhanced. We can use him.”

The man, clearly in charge, is not following through on a threat? The Iron Soldier knows something is wrong, then, more than his failure to get the man what he wants, but he doesn’t know what.

He supposes that’s alright. He’ll be told what he needs to know—no more, no less.

The man stands, walking towards the door, and he motions vaguely towards the Iron Soldier as he walks out. “Wipe him. Start him over,” he instructs.

The Iron Soldier is not surprised by that. He is clearly not serving his purpose, so he needs rewiring.

He leans back in his chair— _the_ chair.

The Iron Soldier does not resist, not when they shove him back and give him something to bite down on, not when he can see the two parts that attach to his head coming closer and sparking with a charge, and not even when they latch on and he begins to scream. 

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

Peter doesn’t know how long he stays in bed. He heals fast, he knows he does, but there’s a difference between getting a black eye on patrol and getting beat into the ground by a super soldier. His ribs alone make his life agony when the painkillers they briefly allow him wear off, and his face _hurts,_ even breathing and drinking made difficult by his swollen lips and bruised jaw.

Days pass, he can speculate that much, and as they do, there are doctors in and out constantly, asking him questions as they check on his condition with shifting eyes and quick fingers, scrawling down the answers he gives them.

Their hungry stares freak Peter out, but like with Pierce, there’s nothing he can do with his injuries but pretend to know as little information as possible about them in an effort to make the doctors go away. Peter wants nothing more than to be left alone. Actually, Peter wants nothing more than to go home, but considering his physical state and the fact that he hasn’t seen Iron in person since he got orders to mash his face in, he’s trying to keep his desires—the ones he lets himself acknowledge, anyway—at least a little realistic.

It doesn’t help that he’s dreaming, though nightmares are probably a better word for it than anything.

His sleep is fitful. His body, used to at least a few hours of exercise on patrol each day, isn’t too jazzed about laying down all the time, but there’s not much he can do about that. There’s even less he can do about the image of Iron’s dark, dead eyes barrelling towards him for the kill that keeps coming up despite how long he spends worrying about him while he’s awake.

This is his fault, just like Ben was, and if he has to go through a little suffering for what he did—well, that’s just the way the world goes.

If Peter had to wager a guess, he’d say it takes a week before he can walk again, and he’s dumb enough to try it out in front of the cameras. He knows they’re there, can hear their faint shutters, not to mention how quickly people file into the room when he wakes up, but in hindsight, he could’ve at least tried to hide from them.

He takes a few stumbling steps, wincing at the burn of his ribs that continues to persist, and has hardly gotten himself back into bed when one of his doctors—he’s given up on trying to remember their constantly changing faces—appears and unhooks him from his IV.

He’s quick—rough, too—but everything about HYDRA is rough. Peter doesn’t care much about the IV either way, but he pales when the man barks an order at him.

“Get up.”

Peter looks at him incredulously. Get up? He’s exhausted from even trying to get to his feet earlier, but then the doctor leans over his bed, no feeling in what Peter would almost describe as his reptilian eyes, and pushes on his chest.

Peter doesn’t _scream_ , but the sound that’s dislodged from his throat is hardly pleasant.

“I said get _up,”_ the doctor repeats. They’re not feeling patient today, then.

Peter nods, sucking in a breath as he begins to move again so soon. “Got it, got it,” he mutters, and when he can finally manage to stand, the doctor begins to move.

“Follow me,” the man says, but he’s not walking like Peter is, hunched, shuffling along and biting back cries of pain with every shift of his body. He strides ahead unhindered, and Peter can’t help the soft gasps that leave his lips as he struggles to even trail behind him as he leads him out of the room.

He’s made it maybe halfway down the hall when a reprimand comes: _“Faster.”_

 _How?_ His ribs are on fire, his whole body still aches, and he’s trying, but it’s not good enough. The doctor tells him again to pick up the pace, but when Peter has to sag against the wall, a vignette having settled over his vision, he sounds mad. 

That’s not good, Peter thinks vaguely through the nausea churning in his stomach. 

“What part of—”

Peter throws up onto the ground just beyond his feet, and _fuck,_ it hurts. His legs tremble beneath him, and he can barely manage to keep himself upright. He doesn’t know who thought he was ready to do the fucking marathon the trek to where the doctor wants him to go might as well be, but he hates them, hates this, hates HYDRA.

He glances away from the mess on the ground. The gruel they’d given him and he’d finally gotten hungry enough to eat looks no more appetizing on the way back up. “I—I need a second,” he whispers, letting his eyes close.

It’s probably the vomit—even HYDRA doesn’t like seeing the stuff, evidently—but though the doctor’s lips pinch, he lets Peter gather his bearings. When they begin to walk again, Peter keeping a hand on the wall, he doesn’t press him anymore.

The table he’s instructed to lay on when they reach some sort of lab feels like heaven, cool against his burning skin and easing the suddenly unfathomable burden of having to support his own weight. He takes a few moments on it, panting, but he sees a hand rising with something in it out of the corner of his eye. On instinct, he hits it away.

There are no kind touches with HYDRA—Peter knows that—but defending himself against whatever the hand wanted isn’t worth the frost that creeps into the expression of the doctor who got him from his bed.

It wasn’t even a hard hit—Peter’s too tired for that—but he doesn’t think it matters to him. As he’s discovered in however long it’s been since he’s been taken, HYDRA is more into big ideas than the nuance of things.

The man’s lips move, and the sound that comes out filters through to Peter a beat later.

“Sedate him.”

It’s just Peter’s luck that he’s the one in charge. 

_“No—no, please, I’m sorry—I’m_ sorry, _I didn’t mean to—it won’t happen again—”_

He can’t stop himself from trying to bat away the needles coming at him from a hundred different angles, but it doesn’t do any good. Peter feels lead ooze through his limbs, and any further protest dies before it can begin.

The doctors swarm him after that with more injections and tubes and tests Peter doesn’t know the first thing about, and none of it is gentle. They take his blood, scrape his skin, prod with something up his goddamn _nose_ , and while Peter can feel it all, he can’t so much as beg them to stop. If he’s looking at things optimistically, he feels like a human pincushion. If he’s not, he can’t even say he feels human.

Their beady eyes study him the same way he examines a particularly difficult equation—maybe even Bucky’s arm. He hasn’t considered Bucky yet, actually. He’s thought about May and Iron and even Ben in his long hours in bed, but the guy he’s taken to sharing sandwiches with, not so much.

Beyond the sharp pain of them drawing a scalpel across his skin for the umpteenth time—watching how the thin cut knits back together—it dimly occurs to Peter that he stood him up.

He’s distracted from that train of thought as the doctors mutter above him.

_“Remarkable—even better than the Soldier’s—”_

Peter can’t even suck in a deeper breath when the person doing the slicing cuts deeper than usual.

Peter thinks he might be something of a puzzle they’re looking to solve, except not quite, because puzzles are meant to be put together, and the doctors look very content to take him apart.

//

_???? - ????_

_Pain._

Teary, brown, young eyes.

_Pain._

Brown, young eyes.

_Pain._

Young eyes?

_Pain._

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

Peter doesn’t know how long he’s been on the table. Maybe hours—maybe days. The world has turned to sludge, a whirl of a thousand different tiny pains that metamorphosize into an all-over ache, an itch Peter can’t scratch, a nettling pain that makes him want to yell just to make it stop, but he can’t so much as grind his teeth, much less speak.

They like him better this way, he can tell, and it’s a special kind of terror, knowing he’s a bug pinned to a board, helpless to anything they might decide to try next.

Peter’s never seen anybody pick the wings off flies—the concept makes him sick, actually—but he imagines that if one were to go about it slowly, it might feel like this. He has some kind of hope when he hears the doctor that ordered him sedated speak.

Maybe he’ll say enough is enough—he’s injured and needs to be taken back to his room before he relapses. Yeah, that’d be nice, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll get lucky.

“That’s the last of the preliminaries, yes?”

“Yes, sir. The samples we’ve taken seem to be sufficient, but we can take more at any time when necessary during the actual surgery.”

Surgery? That doesn’t sound like going back to his room—not even close.

The doctor nods. “Good. We can proceed at any time, then.”

Peter’s heart should be racing. Mentally, he knows he’s scared, but his body doesn’t react, content to remain limp on the table. He can see another doctor going to get something, but then the one that Peter’s gotten the pleasure of being especially well acquainted with talks again. “Don’t bother with the anesthesia. He can’t move anyway.”

He’s pulling on a pair of gloves just inside Peter’s line of sight, and the snap of latex on his wrist sounds like the crack of a whip. 

Fear fills his stomach, his lungs, his mouth, bursting from his body so intensely Peter doesn’t know how it isn’t obvious.

The doctor takes the tiniest step closer, but the movement jars Peter, drawing his eyes—the only part of himself he can still move. It’s then that he sees it, and it seems obvious, in hindsight.

Behind the glasses he wears, the doctor’s eyes glitter with anticipation, and Peter understands that they _can_ see his fear—they just don’t care.

He tries to will energy into his body, to move, to flee, to do _anything_ to stop what the doctor has in mind, but he is a boy made of stone.

 _Stone that’s going to bleed_ , he thinks, and the doctor is reaching for a scalpel when the other doctor speaks up, a savior Peter doesn’t expect but is forced to relish all the same.

“Sir, the shock conscious surgery would put him into could overwhelm him. Pierce says he wants the boy to stay alive.”

The doctor looks distinctly disappointed. That’s not the right word for it, not really, but Peter doesn’t think there is a single term to cover the sharp, vicious greed in his stare that all but growls in discontent at the objection. 

Still, the doctor sighs, setting the scalpel down. “I suppose you’re right.” He tuts as if he’d merely spilled something on his shirt. “They give us the greatest breakthrough in genetic engineering in decades and say we have to keep it alive.” A scoff. “What a waste.”

He’s not a breakthrough, Peter wants to scream. He’s a kid, and he wants to go home, to see his aunt, his friends, to just have everything be okay again.

Instead, he sees one last shot rise in his peripheral, silver and glass glinting in the lab’s fluorescents.

“We’ll just have to make the most of it, then,” he remarks optimistically, and as the needle sinks into Peter’s neck, the most he can do is blink.

//

_???? - ????_

There is a hand touching his face. The hand tips his chin up, looks hard at him. Well, the hand doesn’t do the looking. There are eyes for that, and the eyes are in a face. The face looks like it’s focusing. 

Focused on him? 

That would make sense, considering they’re touching him, but he wishes they wouldn’t. His head hurts, and there’s a burnt taste on his tongue. He wants to sleep.

A voice floats to him through the fog, a close voice. He wonders if it’s coming from the face attached to the hand, and then he decides he’s too tired to care.

“He’s not responding, sir. It’s unclear if he’s aware of what’s going on.”

The hand goes away, and he lets his eyes close, only for another hand to come. This one feels rougher than the first. He looks again and finds a different pair of eyes too. The last ones were green. These are blue, and he can process, faintly, that cracked lips below them are moving.

He feels a flicker of something unpleasant at the sound that fills the air, but it dies out, unrecognized for the brief second it had existed.

The second hand taps something below his face, something that doesn’t feel like skin, and it sends a dull ache through his body, a throb that resonates from his toes to his teeth.

He can’t stop his features from twisting at the sensation, though even that is exhausting.

“There we go,” the second voice says, and the hand draws away. “Go again. When I said we’re starting from scratch, I meant it.”

“But sir—”

“Start again, doctor. One more round should do it.”

He doesn’t know the meaning behind the words, but he wonders how the voice knows him. Should it? Should he know the voice? He tries to think about it, but it’s too hard.

A third hand shoves something in his mouth, there is movement in the corner of his eyes, and the voices fade out.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

Peter gets a cell.

He never thought he’d be grateful for one, but it’s a kind of sanctuary, a place he gets thrown in to lick his wounds for however long they decide is appropriate before they take him again and put him under so they can cut him open.

They’ve never said as much, but considering Peter’s holds pretty clear memories of the word _surgery,_ not to mention the giant scar that starts high in the middle of his sternum and runs to just above his belly button like the world’s most botched tally mark, he puts the pieces together.

He didn’t think he scarred after the bite, but he has smaller cuts on his arms—a result of their tests that first day he was sedated, slicing into his skin again and again and seeing how fast he heals. He suspects the scar is from the same concept on a much, much larger scale, but he tries not to think about that.

It’s bad enough that he has no way of fighting back against what he’s realized is a never-ending series of experiments on what they see as a near-constantly usable subject.

Peter has been thankful for his resiliency before, but he’d give it up in a second if he thought it would make them leave him alone, stop the constant, bone-deep _pain_ of injures he’s not conscious for that balls him up on his cot, erase the crimson tint from his showers because he wakes up time after time in his cell without having been cleaned from whatever the day’s procedure was.

So as far as life with HYDRA goes, being left the hell alone, even if it’s in a room that always smells like his own blood, is as good as it gets.

After he cleans up, he usually tries to sleep. Sometimes it works, and sometimes he spends what must be hours reciting the periodic table, constellations, math formulas—anything that doesn’t leave his mind open to reflecting on certain topics Peter has warded off in an attempt to make his life marginally less miserable.

He doesn’t think about his own body being gutted on a cold table, of his blood on strangers’ gloves.

He doesn’t think about May losing her last bit of family when HYDRA decided they wanted him for a lab rat.

He doesn’t think about Iron undoubtedly being hurt because Peter gave them away.

Instead, he tries to remember what it felt like to fling himself through the air, to have May’s arms wrapped around him in a hug, to see Iron smile.

It makes the pain of their operations the tiniest bit more bearable, even if little by little, injection by injection, Peter begins to accept that there is no way out—not within twisting halls he doesn’t know, not when he wakes up after being in the lab and can hardly walk—and no one is coming for him.

No one who can help cares about Spider-Man, and the only person looking to protect Peter Parker is facing the consequences of taking the time to spare his life—or so he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m gonna FIX IT I swear but uh. until then enjoy lmao


	8. Chapter 8

_NEW YORK CITY - 2 1/2 MONTHS AGO_  


The kid stands him up.

Technically, that’s not a big deal. Teenagers are forgetful, and the kid’s got a busy schedule—Bucky’s heard all about it through mouthfuls of pickles and squished bread. So, yes, _technically_ , it’s not a big deal.

Unfortunately for technicalities, he’s on the run, has intimate knowledge of the things that can happen to a person when they’re not where they’re supposed to be, and made a fucking _promise._

A lot of things have changed over the past hundred or so years, but Bucky’s willingness to go back on his word is not one of them. Iron sent him after Peter, and that means that the second things go even _slightly_ wrong, he’s all over it.

His first move is to stake out the kid’s apartment. He could be sick, Bucky can acknowledge that, but after twenty-four hours of no movement from his bedroom window, he rules that out.

His second move is to go to the library. They have computers there, which is information Bucky doesn’t remember getting, and someone also apparently taught him how a search engine works, even if he is a little rusty, because it’s hard but not _that_ hard to pull up NYPD’s missing persons list, and there, smiling awkwardly in what Bucky assumes is a yearbook photo, is Peter Parker.

In his gut, he already knew, but there’s a peculiar kind of nausea, Bucky discovers, that accompanies finding out the fourteen-year-old he’s been having lunch with has disappeared beyond the parameters of his paranoia. There’s an even worse kind that accompanies knowing without proof who took him.

He doesn’t know how the hell HYDRA managed to snag Peter without discovering who was looking after him—assuming they took him because they figured out he knows Iron, but why else would they care enough to kidnap him—but if they took him, there’s no way that sweet, baby-faced kid didn’t cave and tell them everything they wanted to know.

Bucky doesn’t blame him, but HYDRA doesn’t tolerate insubordination. Peter giving what they ask means Iron is getting hurt—badly.

This all runs through Bucky’s head in approximately two minutes, which he spends sitting and staring at the library computer, clenching his hands into fists so he doesn’t accidentally break any equipment and ignoring the girls a couple tables over whispering to each other about him.

Bucky would probably kill himself before he let HYDRA get their paws on him again, but he can’t just leave them to suffer.

He lets out a deep, long-suffering sigh and allows himself to slip into a mindset he still has at disposal, one that makes his skin crawl but knows how to work a computer better than his actual consciousness. Something like the Winter Soldier leaves a few messages dotted in things like requests to a local radio station or an online article from a smaller news source, codes Iron taught him a long time ago when HYDRA made the mistake of leaving them alone together, and he goes back to his apartment, waiting for his recipient to show her hand.

Approximately a week later, a woman he shot coming up on a year ago is sitting on his couch when he comes back from a grocery run.

He tells the Widow—Natasha—basically everything, and she looks at him like she might kill him.

Thankfully, Bucky knows how to defend himself against her. He spent time in the Red Room, which is something he never fully forgot but has realized consciously sometime after his escape.

Natasha’s less risky than the man—Steve—who Bucky knows he knows but isn’t sure how to feel about. For things like these, she’ll take an objective view, or at least, that’s what she was trained to do, which is what Bucky’s counting on.

“So, to get this straight,” she begins, “the other Soldier around for Insight—”

“You’ve met?”

“—has a kid he broke his conditioning to send you after. Said kid has gone missing, so you want SHIELD’s help to recover both of them.”

Still wondering how the hell Natasha met Iron when he’s even better at sneaking around than Bucky is, he shoves his curiosity aside for the moment. “That’s the rundown,” he sighs, moving to his shitty coffee machine for a cup. 

His instincts scream at him for turning his back to her, but it’s a strategic vulnerability. He needs Natasha to see that he trusts her—or at least pretends to—because the truth is, he may be the Winter Soldier, but he’s stranded in a world that’s changed while he’s stayed stagnant. He has no idea how to find where HYDRA might have them squirreled away, and even if he did, he’s good but not _that_ good. He needs backup—people who can get the base’s plans, disable cameras, the works. Half a century’s experience in the field is great, but it can’t do everything for him here, as much as he’d prefer to work alone.

As his coffee percolates, Bucky turns back around. To nearly anyone else, Natasha’s face would be blank, but he can see the tells of her microexpressions—the tiniest tightness to her mouth, the ever-so-slight lowering of her brows—and sees that she’s considering.

“What’s in it for SHIELD?” she says after a moment.

Bucky can’t help but laugh a little at that, the idea that anyone might not know why HYDRA having Iron spells disaster.

“What?” she asks, a touch irritated.

He raises a brow. “Well, first of all, you get a super soldier out of HYDRA’s hands, but Iron’s a genius too.” His coffee machine beeps at him, and he reaches for a mug. “He’s the one who designed Insight, along with a bunch of other nasty shit. Didn’t have a choice,” he slips the reminder in, “but still. I doubt what’s left of SHIELD wants that working against them.” He pours his serving and turns back around, leaning against the counters. “The kid’s smart too. If the two of them were forced to work together, I imagine HYDRA could get a lot of new weapons you guys won’t wanna’ see in action.” 

He takes a drink and meets Natasha’s eyes. He’s acting nonchalant, like he hasn’t risked everything telling her where he is, like he has any other option if she says no, but he needs her to agree.

Her expression teeters on the same not-quite-blankness, and then something gives with a quirk of her lips that does very little to make Bucky feel at ease. Actually, it does the exact opposite.

She smirks and leans onto his ratty couch. “Fine,” she agrees. “I’ll bring it to Fury, but only if you do something for me.”

He knows she and Steve were there for Insight, but no, _she wouldn’t, she_ won’t—

“You have to talk to Steve.”

Goddamnit.

He snaps the handle off his mug, and she has the audacity to laugh.

//

_WASHINGTON D.C. - 2 MONTHS AGO_

The things he does for Iron have to be some kind of character defect because there is no reason Bucky should have to endure this, standing outside Steve Roger’s apartment with his fist periodically raised to knock for the last five minutes because he doesn’t know how to bridge the final gap between _escaped and ignoring his life before HYDRA mind fucked him_ and _escaped and getting sucker-punched by his life before HYDRA mind fucked him._

The gap is more of a chasm, honestly, and he’s starting to wonder how he can fake closing it to a spy as well trained as he is when any semblance of control he might’ve had over the situation disappears as Steve swings open the door, looking like he’s ready for a run. 

Bucky remembers the last time this happened with surprising clarity, but the word that falls from his lips, how _familiar_ it is, still makes his stomach do a nervous flip.

_“Bucky?”_

This time, he knows exactly who that is, but there’s nowhere to run, no base to return to. He sighs. “Hey,” he replies, feeling like he’s lost his balance, which should be next to impossible nowadays. “Can I come in?”

_“What?”_

“I mean, I can wait until after your run if it’s that important, but I think we should, you know, talk.” A pause. “And only kinda’ because your friend made me.”

It makes Bucky feel strangely reassured to see that Steve looks like he got sucker-punched too, but once he manages to pick his jaw up off the floor, his lips curve into the phantom of a grin Bucky _knows._

A series of memories flash in his mind’s eye—the smell of back alleys, lights from a carnival, a striped tie around a skinny neck—but are gone before Bucky can catch hold of any of them. Regardless, he somehow expects the word that tumbles from his lips.

“Asshole.”

There’s a response to that that leaps to Bucky’s tongue— _punk_ —but it feels wrong to say, standing outside a strange apartment in a strange century. Instead, he shrugs, but he can’t keep a touch of amusement out of his voice. “So, did you wanna’ talk, or were we just gonna’ stay out here all day?”

Steve lets him inside, and something small in his chest that Bucky can’t put a finger on eases despite the dread still sitting heavy in his core.

//

_WASHINGTON D.C. - THE NEXT DAY_

“How’d it go?”

“You’re lucky I need you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Shut up.”

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 1 1/2 MONTHS AGO_

“What do you _mean_ at least a month?”

The man with an eye patch—who he apparently shot and might shoot again, at this rate—has his hands on the table and looks at Bucky like he’s an idiot. Bucky’s learned his name is Fury, which is a pretty good word for what he’s stoking in Bucky right now. Around the table at the safe house they’re hiding out in at the moment, Bucky can see Natasha, Steve, and the man he vaguely remembers knocking out of the sky—Sam—exchange looks, but he doesn’t care.

“I don’t know if you realize what you’re asking of us, Sergeant Barnes, but it does take time to gather the resources for the stunt we’re pulling. My people are narrowing down which of their known facilities have the means to hold someone of the Iron Soldier’s caliber, and that takes time too. So, unless you have any other resources you’d like to let us know about that would speed that process up, I’d appreciate a little respect.”

Bucky hands, previously just resting at the edge of the table, are gripping it now. He can feel wood splintering under his grasp, but he doesn’t care. “They’re _torturing_ a fourteen-year-old kid,” he snarls.

“You don’t know they have him.”

“Oh, sure, because kids going to fancy-ass science schools just _disappear_ —”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t _likely,”_ Fury responds, angry but still more controlled than Bucky, who is going to rip a piece out of the table if he doesn’t calm down soon, “but we have to base our actions on confirmed intel. The Iron Soldier is a threat to the free world, and we know he’s in HYDRA’s hands. He takes priority, and I’m not risking _my_ operatives over anything that’s not certain.”

And there goes the table. 

“Buck,” Steve tries to placate him.

Bucky doesn’t fucking _care._ He slams the chunk of wood in his hands on what remains of the table and stands, throwing the door open so hard he’s pretty sure it comes off of its hinges. He doesn’t care about that either, and he stalks down the hall towards his bedroom. Nobody follows him, which is probably for the best. His breath feels acidic in his nose, and his hands are itching to tear something more substantial than furniture apart.

He knows they’re right. It makes _sense_ , but he hates it anyway. Fury can talk big game about absolutes, but Bucky knows in the very depths of his soul that HYDRA got Peter, which means that the kid who takes the time to ask that his sandwiches be _squished down real flat_ has been left at the hands of goons who like to watch their charges squirm if he’s _lucky._

Bucky doesn’t like to think about what could happen if he hasn’t been, but in quiet moments, watching rain fall, eating the meals Steve brings him when he doesn’t feel up to going to the kitchen, his mind wanders, imagining all the creative ways HYDRA could force that brilliant brain of his to work for them, and that’s not even considering the punishments HYDRA’s undoubtedly been putting Iron through for bothering with Peter.

What concerns him but he hasn’t voiced for fear of postponing the mission even further is that when they get there, Iron won’t have the presence of mind to remember that he wants to be liberated.

Bucky sucks in a breath, opening and shutting the door to his room with marginally more care that he had at the meeting. What Fury has to fix is Fury’s problem. Bucky doesn’t need any more of those for himself.

He walks in, beginning to pace with steps he knows are too loud, too angry. The Soldier within him has a penchant for destruction, but Bucky refuses to have to go to Fury for a replacement for something he ruined. The best he can do is grab a notebook Steve gave to him and rip page after page from its spiral. After he does that, he picks the pages back up and tears those into as many pieces as he can manage. He’s probably halfway through the second step and actually starting to calm down a little when he hears a knock at the door.

His temper shoots back up with a vengeance. Steve is the only one who ever comes to his room, no matter how many times Bucky tells him that he doesn’t have to—it’s not like he remembers being who he really wants to see—and he doesn’t want to see him right now because seeing him is going to remind Bucky of Fury and Bucky wants to rip Fury’s head off his shoulders.

“Go away, Steve,” he growls, ripping what’s already a shred of paper into two smaller bits. It’s going to be a bitch to pick up everything, but making a mess of paper is a lot better than making scrap metal out of the bed frame.

“I’m not Steve, but that’s a good try.”

Bucky stops, a new tear of paper already in his fingers. He knows that voice, but Sam, for all his teasing that reminds Bucky of men whose faces he can’t seem to bring into focus, doesn’t go out of his way to talk to him. Bucky doesn’t blame him, but still. There’s no reason for him to be at his door after his blow-up at the meeting, or so Bucky thinks, but Sam doesn’t seem to be on the same page.

“You looked pretty pissed when you left, so I thought I’d see what’s up.” A pause. “And ‘cause Steve asked me to, but that’s not as important. I’m a counselor.” Another break, and then, a little lower, “I used to be, anyway. So if you want someone to just hear you out, that’s kinda’ what I do.”

Bucky doesn’t want to talk, but Sam made an effort, despite how reclusive he’s been since he first contacted Natasha. That’s genuine, and Bucky hasn’t experienced that from someone new in a long time.

“You can come in,” he mutters, not exactly thrilled about it but also not about to turn him away.

The door opens, and Bucky watches his eyes dart around the space, likely taking in the shreds of paper everywhere. 

“So, did you kill a snowman or something?”

Bucky’s not sure what he was expecting from him, but Sam’s reaction makes him snort. “Nah,” he replies, picking up another piece of paper, “just a notebook. ‘Needed to break something, and I figured this wouldn’t be too bad.”

Sam nods, plucking a piece disturbed by the opening of the door out of the air. “Makes sense.” He pinches it for a moment before he lets it fall. “You do this often?”

Bucky shrugs. “Not usually. Fury just—” A clench of his organic fist. “—pissed me off today.”

Another nod from Sam, who closes the door behind him. “He kinda’ sucks sometimes, but he’s a badass. And I know what he said back there, but he’s been in a bad mood since you came with Nat voluntarily ‘cause Steve and I have been too busy looking for you to work for him. He won’t leave the kid behind.”

Bucky raises a disbelieving brow.

“If me, Steve, _and_ Nat refuse to leave the base without the kid, he won’t, but we’re hoping it won’t come to that. None of us really feel like getting our asses chewed out for disobeying orders.”

The way he speaks of Steve and Natasha is so assured, easy, it almost makes Bucky jealous. He doesn’t know the last time he knew a person to be able to predict them like that, not even Iron, who he’s seen more of than just about anybody when he was with HYDRA.

He changes the topic, eyeing a full sheet of paper but not reaching for it, no matter how appealing the idea is. “Weren’t you just supposed to listen to what I have to say?”

Now Sam laughs. The sound is short, but it’s there, and Bucky is strangely pleased with having coaxed it forth. “Yeah, I didn’t think you were gonna’ let me in if I said I was gonna’ say something about Fury, so I skewed things a little. But if you ever do wanna’ talk, I am good for that.”

Like the act of showing up outside his door, the words are dripping with sincerity, and Bucky doesn’t quite know what to do with that. So, he looks at the mess he’s made of his carpet. “I’m going to clean up,” he says, bending down so that he doesn’t have to see Sam’s face. “If you want to help, the trash can’s over there,” he adds, pointing.

And Sam grumbles something about not being a maid but stoops to help anyway.

The next day, Bucky makes a point of showing up for a meal or two, and though he doesn’t quite know how to say it, he hopes Sam knows he appreciates the reassurance.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 6 HOURS AGO_

The four of them are playing cards. Natasha’s definitely cheating, but Bucky thinks it’s kind of funny to see Steve getting increasingly worked up about losing so badly and, as a result, hasn’t called her out yet.

Organizing the mission is taking longer than Bucky wanted, but somehow, being with people who know what’s in his past and don’t seem to care eases some of the burn of his worries—for Peter, for Iron, and for leaving both of them to fend for themselves.

Steve’s about one more play from Natasha from losing his shit, and her phone buzzes. Bucky doesn’t have one himself, and he’s too busy figuring out his strategy for his next turn to think much of it. She, however, checks it immediately, and when she speaks, her words don’t register for a moment.

“We’re going.”

“What?” Sam asks, not looking up from his hand.

“We’re _going,”_ she reiterates, the couch squeaking as she gets to her feet, the playfulness of the game evaporated from her face. “We’ve received word that guard is unusually low because of a planned training at another base. We have a limited window of opportunity, and Fury has decided to take it.”

“How long?” Bucky asks, his cards falling onto the table.

“Until we leave? Half an hour.” She’s staring at him, analyzing his reaction, likely, but this doesn’t scare Bucky. 

This is what he’s been waiting for, the environment he’s been trained to thrive in. Adrenaline floods his veins, and as the jet they load onto approaches the base holding his counterpart and the kid he cared enough to come back for, Bucky braces himself for all hell to break loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew—that officially brings us to the end of what I had pre-written when I started posting this work! Right now, the fic is sitting at a little over 70k, but honestly, I could see things continuing for another 20-30k after that; this story has gotten a little away from me if you couldn’t already tell, lmao.
> 
> My apologies for the short chapter this week, but with the flow of the story, it’s how I felt things should naturally fall. Next week’s is longer, but thank you for all the support and love you’ve all shown this work regardless! I really do appreciate it. Also, if you ever have any questions or other commentary about this fic, feel free to stop by my tumblr linked below—I’d love to talk!


	9. Chapter 9

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_  


The first thing Peter hears is rumbling.

It reaches him distantly from his spot on the ground. Today is one of the worst he’s had in a while. He thought broken ribs were bad, what with not being able to move without aggravating them, but this is so much worse. He thinks they messed with his spine, and he can barely ball himself up into his usual position: his knees folded to his chest and arms wrapping around them to grip his ankles. There are going to be bruises at this rate, but holding onto himself is one of the only methods he has left to alleviate the pain.

Alleviate is probably the wrong word for it, actually, because the aches of the day come through as strong as ever. Making a less intense source of it is just a good distraction.

So, yeah, the rumbling doesn’t exactly draw all of his attention at the moment. It’s more background noise than anything, and with the pounding of his head, it’s unwelcome, making him flinch as he tries to bury his face in his legs, hoping that might help.

Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Peter tends not to cry anymore. It usually makes his headaches worse, not to mention it means drinking the metallic-tasting water that comes from the facilities in his cell to rehydrate, but the rumbling is _loud_ , and he just wants to fall asleep, which is the only real reprieve he’ll get before they decide he’s healed enough and drag him from his cell again. However, frustration gets to him sometimes, especially when he lacks the energy to lash out at anything, and he can feel angry tears prick at the back of his eyes.

This is the only thing he gets for himself, and whatever they’re doing is _ruining_ it.

It’s probably just a stupid training thing. They talk to him about it sometimes when they feel like rubbing his predicament in his face—how the only reason he isn’t brawling with other enhanceds is that Iron beat him to a pulp that first day and they got a chance to see him heal. Apparently, they’re more interested in taking him apart and seeing what the hell the spider did to change the way he ticks than watching him fight people who, they tell him, _are going to die anyway._

(When Peter wakes up and finds a new scar more hideous than the last, he wonders if that fate would be easier.)

A particularly loud crash comes from the direction of the rest of the noise, and an alarm splits what quiet remained in the cell. Peter hisses, his hands flying up from his ankles to cover his ears. There’s no chance he’s sleeping now, and the pain of his spine ratchets up a level, as if in response to his discomfort.

“Hydrogen, helium, lithium—” he begins to whisper, eyes clenching shut to limit some of the stimulation he’s getting. Recitation is one of his other coping methods, but the periodic table is dangerously fragile in his mind, the simple progression of protons split by the shrill whine of the alarm. Peter tries to focus, but he can’t stop his mind from wandering, entertaining dangerous, doubtlessly disappointing thoughts— _what if someone’s trying to break out? What if it’s Iron? What if Iron’s coming for him, and they can get away, and he can see May, and the doctors won’t be able to cut him open anymore, and—_

Peter can hear footsteps in the hall, and he curls into himself a little tighter. They’re fast, definitely a run, but it’s probably a guard coming to make sure he doesn’t try anything, if that. People walk by his cell every day without retrieving him, and even though it makes his heart race every time, it’s a part of his life now. He waits for the person to pass, but the footsteps stop right outside his door.

Peter braces himself. The guards are the worst. For whatever reason, they think it’s fun to kick—or punch, or smack, or all manner of terrible things—him while he’s down, and today, of all days, it’s really going to hurt. He keeps his face buried like that’ll save him, and when the door swings open, he stays on the ground but doesn’t flinch—refuses to show his trepidation in front of one of the many people who enjoy his fear in this place. He’ll be strong—strong like Iron, strong like he couldn’t be for Ben, strong like—

“Kid?”

Peter freezes. He _knows_ that voice, though he can’t quite place it, and it’s not spiteful, not the cruel sneer of an agent. It has to be a trick, but Peter can still hear rumbling, and it’s been so long since he saw a kind face. Cautiously, he lifts his head as much as he can, and the sight that greets him doesn’t make any sense but is more welcome than anything else he’s seen since that terrible day with Iron.

Somehow, the man he used to have dinner with a few times a week is standing in front of him, his expression twisted in a way Peter’s never seen before, but he’s _there._

“Bucky?” he rasps, and inexplicably, the alarm doesn’t hurt so much in his ears anymore.

//

_HYDRA BASE - 20 MINUTES AGO_

Bucky decided almost immediately after he became lucid after Insight that he was done killing innocents. That being said, that term doesn’t apply to anyone working in a HYDRA base, and he would be lying if he said it doesn’t feel good to turn a rain of bullets against people who wouldn’t blink at leaving him to rot like he has for the past several decades.

Sam is defending the jet outside with his wings, but Steve and Natasha don’t seem to be flinching at the way his target’s bodies jerk before they fall, felled with clean, fast shots. They know Iron and Peter are being kept at this base, but details of _where_ are what they lack.

Thankfully, Bucky knows how to fix that.

Past the first wave of agents, there’s an officer, which Bucky knew would be the case before they stepped foot in the base because HYDRA is made up of people who love to have the upper hand but aren’t willing to put their necks on the line. As soon as he has an opening, he lunges past the pathetically weak attempt at defense to get the officer by his collar.

He shoves him into the wall, unflinching even at the crack of his head against the concrete, and presses him there with his metal arm across his neck. Let them know who he is, he thinks. Let them know, and let them be _afraid_ of their own creation ripping them apart. “Where is the Soldier?” he snarls, trusting Steve and Natasha to watch his back and not disturbed by the sound of battle behind him.

The officer’s chest heaves, and when he doesn’t respond, Bucky reaches for a knife, pressing it to one of his shoulders—not cutting, not yet, but letting him know what he’s willing to do because the fact of the matter is that Bucky’s not bluffing. He’s doing this for Iron and Peter, but there’s an undeniable, vicious satisfaction zinging through his veins crowing that _he_ is the one in control here. That means that if he needs to, there’s no reason not to injure—maim. The man would certainly deserve it. There are no words, no wipes—just Bucky, his knife, and the officer, who caves as he’d expected, losing any semblance of calm.

“I—I don’t know,” he stutters. “I don’t have that kind of clearance—don’t kill me, _please_ don’t kill me.”

“We’ll see how helpful you can be,” Bucky growls, not moving the knife away. “If you don’t know where the Soldier is, then where’s the kid?”

“I—the kid?” His voice has gone high, and Bucky watches him swallow past his shaking breaths.

“Teenager. Pale. Brown hair, brown eyes. Knows the Soldier.”

“He—I—I—please don’t kill me.”

They don’t have _time_ for this, and Bucky puts a little pressure on the knife. They can’t afford HYDRA having time to call in reinforcements, and Bucky pushes harder. “Tell me, or you’re going to end up with a knife in your shoulder,” he hisses, and the man yelps as the metal arm pushes harder into his throat, voice coming out strangled.

“I don’t know what—what cell exactly,” he says. “I just—word gets around base, and I know he’s in the east wing, near the labs. You can take my card. It’ll let you in over there—don’t stab me, oh my god— _please.”_

The officer’s young and clearly a coward, but he has been somewhat helpful.

“Where’s the card?” he demands, and the man tips his head to the right.

“Breast pocket,” he whimpers, and Bucky filches it out without trouble. He would kill him, would probably relish the blood on the ground, in some dark part of him not entirely nurtured by HYDRA, but they need to get going. Instead, he slams his head into the wall—only as hard as it takes to knock him out—and leaves him on the ground, consoled by the knowledge that HYDRA’s punishment for giving up the information will probably be worse than anything Bucky would have done on a limited time frame.

“I got clearance for the kid!” he shouts over his shoulder, jogging to catch up with Steve and Natasha, who are scouting ahead. “No word on Iron, though.”

Natasha grunts, taking down an agent that tries to rush her with a few deft motions. “Well, _figure it out_. Steve or I can go get the kid if you—”

A knife whizzes past her head, and Natasha’s words die in her throat as she swivels to find the source of the threat.

Bucky knew this could happen, but he still feels sick at the sight that greets them.

At the end of the hall, Iron stands, muzzled and managing to appear murderous while not having an ounce of expression on his face.

(That was him, once, a voice in Bucky’s head he doesn’t care to listen to whispers. That was him, and Steve managed to break him out of it.)

“Found him,” he mutters, and if Natasha replies, he doesn’t hear it, charging to meet him head-on. Blows fly between them like missiles, and the sound of his metal limb slamming into concrete as Iron deflects his blows might as well be the explosion of them finding their targets. Bucky tries to reach for his light—something he knows hurts him, a glaring weak spot on HYDRA’s otherwise perfectly crafted weapon—but Iron is used to having to defend himself from people who want to see him hurt. His hands match Bucky’s hit for hit, almost as if he can predict his next move, and _fuck,_ Bucky forgot how good he is, that Iron learned to fight against him as practice.

“Iron,” he growls, dodging a fist coming for his head. “Iron, it’s me—it’s _Winter._ I came—” A jab at the juncture of where his arm meets his shoulder that Bucky barely dodges. “—for you and the kid. You remember him? Peter? You sent me for him. He’s here, and we’re getting both of you out.” Iron doesn’t so much as blink, catching his metal fist mid-swing like it’s nothing.

It’s no use. He’s not enough, not like Steve was for him, and Iron is _winning_ , made strong by his lack of reservations where Bucky sees him for what he’s somehow become through the terrible years they’ve known each other—a friend.

Bucky grits his teeth as he lands a blow to his stomach, cursing the fact that Iron knows how he moves. If he was on his own, he’d likely lose, but Steve and Natasha appear while he’s still reeling, pushing Iron back and away from him.

“Go get the kid!” Steve yells, swinging with his shield. “We’ll hold him off!”

Bucky doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to leave the two of them at Iron’s currently non-existent mercy, but he’s the one with the card. There’s no chance of getting it to either of them, not with Iron managing to attack both of them at once without struggle, and Bucky turns and runs, tearing through what agents appear in his path. The officer had said the east wing, and while Bucky memorized the plans of the base on the ride over, there’s something more to the ease with which he maneuvers through the halls. He’s flexing a muscle he didn’t know he had, and it occurs to him with no delight that he’s been wherever he’s going before.

(Peter shouldn’t be anywhere _near_ the places Bucky would know in a HYDRA base.)

His feet pound against the ground, and just when it appears that he’s outrun what personnel they’ve sent for the moment, he catches a barely-there thrumming of a heart accompanied by labored breaths in the silence.

Bucky grits his teeth, pushing himself harder. He’s thought of what hell they must be putting the kid through for months now, and it’s time to put an end to it.

Bucky swipes the card to the sensor outside the cell, saving him the time of having to bust the door down, and he stares down at the impossibly small shape on the floor, wishing he could’ve gotten to him even a second sooner.

//

_???? - PRESENT_

The Iron Soldier exists to fight. Not to do missions, not to intimidate, to _fight_ , to win the wars of whoever orders him into them, and he has been trained to do so very, very well.

It makes things easier to know how the Widow operates.

Her clothes are sleek, but he recognizes the hourglass at her waist and how it means she will fight, vicious and snapping the blades and lithe limbs that serve as her jaws however she can. He determines immediately that she is the worse opponent to let into his space, and while she cannot use her guns for fear of shooting the man she fights with, the Iron Soldier also knows she has other methods of attack, ones that could prove dangerous to his light.

His solution is to keep the man between them.

He is strong and fights like he knows it, not as brutal as the man who ran—the man who knew his name—but resourceful enough to make up for it.

The Iron Soldier is particularly concerned with his shield. It makes for a versatile weapon, and his handler has instructed him to stop the advance of the attack. If the Iron Soldier allows the Widow to shock him or the shield to get too close, he could fail, so his next move is calculated.

The next time the man bounces his weapon off the wall, the Iron Soldier takes hold of it. Throwing it would be a poor choice without getting a chance to learn how the thing works, but a shield is a shield. More importantly, it’s kept out of the man’s hands, whose blows then take far less energy to block when they ring harmlessly off the metal surface.

The Iron Soldier skids back and out of the Widow’s reach as she tries to come in on him.

He _knows_ the maneuver she just tried, and though his arm twinges strangely at the effort—a phantom pain that he does not remember and does not allow to slow him—she is easy to grab hold of when he ducks close to her for a fraction of a second, just long enough to throw her a ways away and still leave time to intercept the man’s swift blow.

The Iron Soldier doesn’t see him tiring at all, but that’s not a problem. Whatever the man’s strength and stamina is, he has trained against those more ruthless than him for longer. Pain is not a deterrent for the Iron Soldier, nor exhaustion.

His mind runs coolly, analyzing the most efficient way to exterminate his attackers when he gets an opening, and he lunges again with the sole intention of serving his purpose flawlessly.

He is the Iron Soldier, and there is nothing that matters except victory.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

“What are you doing here?” Peter croaks, watching him bend down. He tries to unfurl himself, but he can’t hide the wince doing so prompts, though he does manage to bite back a cry of pain he would’ve let loose if he’d been alone. “How—how are you—” Words fail him for a moment as he presses his lips together in an attempt to sit up that ultimately fails. “Don’t you live in Brooklyn?” he says at last, still on the ground but more spread out now, ignoring the panicked sweep of Bucky’s eyes over his sprawled form.

“Would it surprise you to know that someone sent me to look after you?”

It still doesn’t make sense. How did Bucky, a guy from his favorite freaking _sandwich shop_ , end up in a HYDRA base? The pieces might come together if he could just _think_ , but his head is still pounding. 

“Who?”

He’s one last hint from figuring it out, and it’s driving him a little bit crazy that he can’t make sense of it all.

He’s never hallucinated before, but he wouldn’t put it past HYDRA to drug him up on something that would change that.

“Can you walk?” Bucky asks.

Peter shakes his head no. _“Who?”_ he presses. He has to know. If Bucky doesn’t tell him, there might not actually be a reason, and he’ll know this isn’t real.

Bucky’s hands, even the metal one, are gentle as they slip under his knees and back, picking him up as if he weighs nothing, but Peter gasps in pain, reaching for something to anchor himself with. The first thing he finds is Bucky’s arm, which, he realizes now, is completely uncovered. He’s never seen it in full before, and he glances down, only to stop short at the red star he sees splayed across the top of it.

He knows that star because he went searching for Iron years ago when it became possible and it was the only thing that came up. His confusion evaporates as the puzzle he thought he was looking at is flipped upside down and suddenly made a hundred times clearer. He looks up at Bucky in wonder, thinking of his patience with his curiosity, with his tangents about whatever interesting topic he’s stumbled into. “You’re the Winter Soldier,” he murmurs in awe. 

The Winter Soldier has become _legendary_ since the dump. The government’s been looking for him, and if he’s here now, that means he escaped. That means _HYDRA_ has probably been looking for him too, and Peter’s eaten dinner with him for the better part of two months and thought nothing of it except that the guy really likes plums and roast beef.

Peter can’t see his face, but Bucky’s reply is concise. “That easy, huh?”

Peter barely listens because holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

 _“Woah,”_ he breathes, and for a moment, thinking of the insanity of what that means, his body doesn’t hurt anymore. Then, Bucky starts to walk, and Peter grips onto the metal as hard as he can without worrying about breaking it, shaking with the effort it takes not to cry out.

 _Keep talking,_ he thinks. _It’s a distraction_.

“Wait, so if you’re the Winter Soldier, that means—”

His head works furiously, deciphering the parts to the whole he now has, and okay, he’ll cut himself a tiny bit of slack because he’s been experimented on for a hot minute, but seriously, how did he not realize it sooner?

“Iron sent you after me,” Peter murmurs, and his lips press together, trying to stop the tears that rise at the revelation.

Iron has been MIA for so long, stuck doing what Peter now can infer to be damage control from the incident in D.C. last year, and he still managed to find a way to make sure he was okay.

And Peter repaid him by blowing their cover the first chance he got.

“Bingo,” Bucky confirms.

He wipes at his eyes harshly, sucking in a breath at the motion as he allows himself to settle back into Bucky’s hold. He’s carrying him out of the room now, and Peter thinks that if things were different, he might be embarrassed.

As is, he’s just grateful he’s awake to remember where he’s being taken.

“Where are we going?” he mutters, voice hoarse.

“Somewhere safe,” Bucky responds, turning a corner. “Both you and Iron. I have some friends with me that are taking care of him.”

It’s strange to hear someone call him by the name Peter has for him, but he’s more focused on the idea of _escape_. 

How is Iron going to get free if he’s like he was when they fought?

Peter can’t stop himself from asking. “But isn’t he—”

“Compromised?”

It’s better than any word Peter has for it, and he nods.

“It’s not their first time dealing with a Soldier. They’ve got it,” he assures him, and Peter figures that’s probably true, but Bucky, even now, is so different than Iron—straightforward and blunt whereas Iron has a million thoughts flicking through his eyes before he settles on what he wants to say. He imagines, in some way, that has to come through in the way he fights.

(Would Bucky have bothered trying to corner him? Would Peter have had time to cave if it was Bucky going for the jugular?)

“He’s strong,” he mumbles, the pain getting harder to think through as Bucky’s loping, supernaturally fast stride carries him through halls he’s never gotten the chance to see before. Peter remembers his strength almost more than anything else, remembers the crushing press of his knuckles into his face over and over and over.

“So are they. Seriously, kid, don’t worry about it. You’ve been through enough. Let someone else take care of it.”

He _can’t_ —because this is all _his_ fault, because it always is, because he swore he wouldn’t expect anyone else to do the saving ever again—but he can barely stand to be carried away from all this. He’s in no shape to go up against Iron, especially Iron like HYDRA makes him, cold-eyed and ruthless.

He sighs, but he’s tired, and his body seems to take feeling safe as some kind of permission to sleep, which isn’t logical or realistic, what with the alarms still splitting his skull in two and the constant shifting of his body in Bucky’s arms. Still, he lets himself drift for a moment, thinking of May, how nice her hug will be when he sees her again, and even of Iron, what he’ll be like without a yoke around his neck.

Then comes the gunfire.

Peter cries out at the sound alone, and the shot of pain down his spine is electrifying as Bucky sets him down roughly so that the bullets can plink harmlessly off his arm. He pants, blinking stars out of his eyes as he tells himself that he can’t scream—he _won’t._ That’s just what they want, and he can’t allow that, not when he’s this close to them never getting to see him again.

Through his black-tinged vision, Peter thinks he sees hands reaching for him a few times, but just as quickly, there’s a clang and a thump, and they’re gone again.

The gunfire doesn’t stop for a long few minutes, and Peter whimpers as he raises his hands to try and cover his ears. 

_Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream—_

The moment there’s quiet, Bucky scoops him back up, and Peter sees a wince cross his face as he yelps at being tossed around.

“Sorry, kid. Looks like we’re going the long way. They’re blocking the fastest route, and—” His voice tapers off, and Peter sees him looking down at him despite the steady, ceaseless gait of his run.

“And what?” he manages.

Bucky doesn’t respond, and Peter is too busy holding onto him in an attempt to feel okay to ask again.

//

_HYDRA BASE - PRESENT_

God, the kid’s in bad shape. The kid’s in _really_ fucking bad shape, and Bucky doesn’t honestly know how he’s conscious, though he seems to be hanging on by a thread, which Bucky can only tell because of the soft sounds of pain he makes every few minutes.

The choked sound that left him as Bucky was forced to all but throw him on the ground back by his cell is still ringing in his ears.

He doesn’t know exactly what HYDRA’s done to him, but he remembers what the officer said about the labs. That doesn’t bode well, and neither do the scars Bucky can see when the kid’s too-big shirt slides down on him. 

It doesn’t help that he’s currently charging right back to Steve and Natasha, who are, as relayed by the crackle of his comm, still _occupied_ with Iron.

It’s not surprising—they were made to never tire, to never allow their injuries to bog them down—but it means he’s taking the kid he suspects HYDRA’s scientists have been _dissecting_ to a man who wouldn’t hesitate to snap him in two.

“I’m headed back to Steve and Natasha’s location with the kid,” he mutters, dropping his eyes to make sure Peter’s still kicking. He can hear his breathing—shallow, obviously strained—and feel his grip, but at the sight of his thin, pale form, Bucky can’t stop himself from checking.

Natasha cuts in—sharp but clearly winded. “ _No._ We’re holding him back—get the kid to the jet another way.”

“Not an option,” Bucky snaps.

He would love to just take the kid to the jet, but by the looks of him, Bucky might not have _time_ to fight through the reinforcements undoubtedly waiting down that way. Slipping past Iron is his best shot, he thinks and watches Peter’s head loll, sees him peer out at the world through half-lidded eyes.

“They cut me open,” he mumbles, though it takes Bucky a second to decipher the slurred words. When he does, it takes a conscious effort not to tighten his grip on Peter. He doesn’t want to hurt him, even if his admission is something Bucky already assumed. “Hurts,” he adds, and Bucky promises himself that if a HYDRA doctor comes across his path, they’re dead.

“They won’t be able to do that anymore,” he promises him, clearing his throat when he finds there’s a little too much grit in his voice. “I’ve got you.”

“Winter Soldier.” He shakes his head a little. “You— _wow_. The Winter Soldier is carrying me. We could fight bad guys together,” he presses, and Bucky might smile if the image of the kid in a ball on the floor—not in restraints, and fuck, HYDRA wouldn’t leave him free if they thought he could fight back—wasn’t burned behind his eyelids.

“Whatever you say, kid,” he replies, chalking his ramblings up to delirium and tugging him a little closer as the sound of Steve’s shield bouncing off the walls filters through the air.

A hysterical giggle bubbles up from between Peter’s cracked lips, and Bucky wishes he could run faster.

//

_???? - PRESENT_

The man gets his shield back, which is irritating. With it, it is much easier to get close to the Widow without worrying about the pulses from her various weapons getting to his chest, but he is capable. He will get it back. He briefly considers putting a knife to the Widow’s throat to force the man to give his shield back, but for that to work, he would have to take his muzzle off to issue his ultimatum.

(The thought of placing a toe out of line makes static build at the back of his head, surging and shrieking that his body is not his own to control.)

Besides, the Widow has been made to work in close quarters. It’s a bad plan, and the Iron Soldier discards it quickly.

Even without explicit memories to confirm it, he knows he is more than capable of ending things with only the weapons on his person. It does not matter if his muscles scream at the strain of continuing to fight, that the light in his chest jostles caustically with his every movement. It is unavoidable. Good weapons do not break, do not malfunction, and the Iron Soldier knows his place.

A blow lands him on his back, but he pushes himself up from the floor and onto his feet immediately. This seems to confuse the man.

“What the _hell,_ Nat?”

“We had the same trainer! We have a few—” He swings a blow over the Widow’s head that she dodges in the nick of time. “—moves in common.”

“You had the same _trainer?”_

“Later!”

But there will not be a later, not for them, because though the Iron Soldier’s performance has been flawless thus far, he somehow senses some great unknown waiting to crash down should he fail. It will hurt far too badly for him to allow things to go wrong.

He can hear footsteps coming—heavy, powerful ones—but though he places them immediately with the man who went past him earlier, there’s something different to them now, a momentary lag that wasn’t there before.

The Iron Soldier zeroes in on it. A change could mean weakness, and he is more than willing to exploit that if need be. He fights the man and the Widow, waiting for the other man to appear, but when he does, the weak point is not what he was expecting.

Rather than a wound, as is what came to mind, the thing slowing the man down is a thin form he carries, gangly limbs bouncing from his arms as he sprints.

The Iron Soldier knows what his superiors do, and he understands that whatever the man carries, it belongs to them.

The Iron Soldier will receive punishment if he allows something to be stolen.

He ducks out of the attacks of the Widow and the man with the shield and dives for the thief as he breaks past. His fingers latch around his ankle, as he intended, and when he pulls, the man goes down, taking his cargo with him.

The Iron Soldier stalks forward, prepared to snatch the prisoner from the man’s grasp, but as his hand reaches forward to tear him away, a face to match the battered body he saw glimpses of darts up, looking directly at him.

The man with the shield and the Widow must be closing in, but the only thing that matters is what he now sees is a child.

A brick building—blood on a kitchen floor—an _assignment_.

The Iron Soldier, for all his programming, stops, unable to explain why he knows the eyes boring holes through all that should be unbreakable.

“Iron?” the child croaks, and decades of pain away from where he began to fall, the Iron Soldier quietly feels his existence implode once more.

//

Peter hurts. No part of him isn’t encompassed by a bone-deep, weary pain that pulses and breathes over his shoulder, letting him know what he is to the people in this place, letting him know a fraction of what Iron has endured for longer than Peter can bear to imagine, but Iron’s _there._

He has his mask on, but Peter can see his wide, uncertain eyes despite the danger emanating from the very way he holds himself. He recognizes him, Peter realizes, and that is so much more than he thought he’d ever get after the last time they saw each other.

He should be scared. There’s a flicker of specific terror within him aimed at the mindless, deadly movements Iron used to split him open while HYDRA watched, but that Iron—their Soldier—didn’t balk. This time, Iron stopped, and that is a comfort too great to vocalize.

Everything is aflame, especially after falling again, but Peter—for Iron—somehow manages the herculean effort it takes to ignore the white-hot burn of his spine as he struggles to his feet and inches forward, reaching out to him. Shapes move in and out of his vision—people—but none of them matter, not even when he thinks he sees a flash of red, white, and blue and hears Bucky’s protest: “Kid, _stop,_ that’s not him!”

That’s just not true, and Peter knows it. If it was, he’d be dead by now. He doesn’t have it in him to fight him off like he tried to last time. This is Iron. A little shaky on his feet, sure, but still him, and his achingly familiar face makes Peter’s world a little more comprehensible.

“Hey,” he whispers. Iron’s not too far from him, really. He’d been trying to grab him, he thinks, but something brought him up short. Peter doesn’t know what it is, and he doesn’t particularly care. He has his attention, and as someone used to making do with scraps, this is no different. 

He already has a handhold, he just needs to pull himself up.

“I—uh—I know I look kinda rough, but I wasn’t goading anyone into it this time, I swear.”

Iron doesn’t respond, but Peter isn’t deterred.

“Alright, I _mostly_ wasn’t goading anyone on. You know me—I never shut up.” He pauses, panting, and takes a moment to swallow the bile rising in his throat. Iron’s frozen, but that means he’s not attacking him. Peter will take it, and he scoots a little closer. It looks like someone’s trying to get close—a flash of red in his peripheral—but he can see Bucky hold up a hand. He’s close enough to touch him, and he starts with his hand, ignoring the shaking of his own with the effort it takes to hold on. “Whew, I’m a little out of breath. These guys don’t exactly have the coziest accommodations, but I guess you know that.”

He feels his calluses—a result of hours of handling tools and weapons—and remembers that Iron is smart, that he told him somewhere along the way that he built his battery. After the dump, Peter started to look into him more, including his light. His hand raises, settling over where he knows it lies in his chest. He doesn’t mean to leave it there, but it occurs to him that without something to brace himself on—even if just a little—he’ll collapse. 

“A mini arc reactor. I know I’ve told you it’s cool before, but it is. I did some research a while back, you know, and that should be impossible to make, but I guess you’re pretty good at math. You always helped me with it. Do you remember that?”

He looks up, and though it’s a little hard to see Iron’s expression with half his face covered, not to mention the red-black film settling over his vision in general, he thinks he sees a near-imperceptible shift that lets him know he’s on the right track.

Peter smiles, saying nothing of his legs that are trembling with the effort of supporting his own weight. “It’s alright if you don’t. I can tell you about it.” He glances down for a second, taking a deep breath and willing back tears of pain. He’s getting there, but he knows he hasn’t quite broken through the barrier separating this Iron from the version Peter’s more familiar with, though it’s getting awfully thin. He needs a bigger push, and when he lifts his head again, he understands what it needs to be just looking at him. 

He lifts his hand once more, hovering, waiting for permission. “Can I take off your mask? I wanna’ talk to you, but it’s kinda’ hard with that in the way.”

There’s a pause, a long one, but Iron’s head finally dips in a nod, and Peter raises himself on his tiptoes, pressing his lips together against the pain as he breaks it cleanly away and casts it to the floor.

Peter knows how because he’s studied the same model for as long as he can remember, thinking of the man who wore it when he was forced to cut out the two people who were always supposed to be with him.

Iron loves to talk, and his voice is hoarse when it comes—less like it hasn’t been used for a long time and more like its run itself dry. “Who are you?” he rasps, and even if he still had his mask on, Peter would understand the rumpling of his dark brows, the way his eyes search his face.

“I’m Peter,” he replies. “And these guys are here to help us get out of here. Is—is that good with you?”

Peter doesn’t know how tightly HYDRA has him wound, doesn’t know if he’ll come without a fight, but he has to try. He watches him, his smile still on his face despite that he wants to fall down and never move again, and just as Iron reluctantly parts his lips to speak, Peter becomes aware that, of the footsteps he can faintly hear from all directions, there is a set coming furiously closer.

The sense Peter has for danger—one of the few things the doctors haven’t discovered about him—gives a pang, and considering he hasn’t felt anything more than a constant, underlying buzz from it for what must be weeks now, he snaps to attention, his eyes darting to the end of the hall he can hear the person coming from.

Cold floods his body as a woman, _the_ woman appears, rage clear on her face as she wields a worn, yellow book. Next to him, Iron goes rigid, and Peter thinks he’s merely scared by her presence until she flips it open and begins to read, breathing roughly as the words seethe past her lips.

Peter has been afraid for a long time, but he hasn’t forgotten her venomous voice and how hard Iron fought her only to be reduced to a mindless _thing_ with all of his brutality and none of his kindness. Before, she didn’t need the book he now understands she’s reciting from, but before, her charge was firmly under her boot, not seconds from breaking free entirely. She’s shaken and needs the support, and Peter can see it.

Peter has thought plenty about what he’d do if he saw Ben’s killer again and still hasn’t come to a conclusion, but somehow, she seems even viler. She wasn’t quick, she didn’t let Iron have someone at his side like Ben had him. She ripped away everything that made Iron himself and _smiled_ , and before anyone can hold him back or get to her first, Peter decides nobody will ever get to do it again, least of all her.

He is inferno and agony as he lunges—an impossible movement in and of itself—but overpowering that is the rare electrification pure _fury_ provides. He has been gutted and scarred, in more ways than one, but he is strong and fast and _hates_ this woman, who is crumbling now that she can see failure just ahead. He moves on instinct and plants a foot in her stomach before she can so much as throw a punch, sending her halfway down the hall. His muscles scream in protest, tears pour down his cheeks, his spine feels like an exposed wire searing him from the inside out, but he pounces again, ripping the book from her hands.

Spots dance in front of his eyes, the world sways dangerously, his knees even begin to buckle, but he has it; he has HYDRA’s key to the shackles tying Iron to them. That means they don’t get him, and he pants in triumph, eyes narrowed as he stands above the woman.

There is just one thing.

The woman is winded, but Peter is tired and hurt, and when he is like that, his warning system tends to glitch. The woman has lost, but she is HYDRA and does what her superiors would expect of an agent rapidly coming to a fate like hers.

Iron’s handler goes out fighting, and Peter never sees the bullet coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(


	10. Chapter 10

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_   


“The doctors said he’ll live,” Winter says.

Iron watches Peter’s chest rise and fall. He’s been in his room since they arrived days ago, and liberation doesn’t fit like he thought it would, doesn’t make him want to run as far as he wants, doesn’t make him want to talk until someone tells him to shut up and then keep going because no one can _make_ him stop. As far as he’s experienced it, liberation is sitting in what’s been converted to a hospital room because a recently tortured fourteen-year-old took a bullet to make sure he made it out.

“Doesn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t have been in the way,” he bites back, bitter, though not at Winter.

Winter risked everything coming back for them after Iron already asked him to uproot his life in Romania, and Iron owes him more than he knows how to say.

  
“She had your words.”

 _“I_ should’ve seen her coming.”

The doctors SHIELD provided don’t even know how Peter managed to fight. Even with his healing factor and other enhancements, they said, HYDRA had just been messing with his nervous system. Any movement had to be painful, and for him to take down a trained operative—

They didn’t say it in front of Iron, but though the wonder in their eyes had a softer tone than the hunger of HYDRA’s scientists, Iron understands that what Peter did was nothing short of miraculous, and now he’s paying the price.

(Iron put a knife through his handler’s throat a few seconds after Peter dropped with a bullet a few inches from one of his lungs, but he wishes he would’ve had the time to make her suffer.)

“You were brainwashed,” Bucky insists.

“I was _not—”_

“Coming out of it is just as bad. Steve triggered it for me as Insight was crashing, and it took me months to sort out the mess it made me. You’re just lucky they never could pin you down for longer than a few months. Fewer layers to peel back to get at the real you.”

 _Steve._ It’s up there with _Natasha, Sam, Fury_ —names he’s been told but doesn’t think fit with him anymore. When was the last time he knew everyone around him? Has he ever? Even Winter has a name they call him— _Bucky_ —but Iron doesn’t know where to begin with himself.

Winter and the Captain—though Iron inexplicably doesn’t care much at all for the latter—know who each other are. They know what year it is and seem to have made sense of it. But 2015—what is that supposed to mean? Iron doesn’t have a start date, doesn’t have a friend to tell him his history. All he has is Peter, who he’s made his own story with—a story that’s coming back the longer he stays in the room with him—but that only began, as he’s discovered with a glance at the file they provided him on the Parkers’ assassination, ten years ago. 

What about before? He’s not with HYDRA, so he’s not a Soldier. He is with Peter, so he gets to be Iron. But is he— _has_ he ever been anyone else?

It’s a giant gorge in the million tiny holes someone’s poked through his mind that spins trying to piece it all together, and it makes his skin crawl.

Iron sighs, frowning down at the deceivingly peaceful picture Peter makes. “It still isn’t right. He was never supposed to get hurt because of me.”

Winter doesn’t have a response for that.

//

_LONG ISLAND - 1984_

The boy, though he grows up in a stiff house where every bump might be his father’s fist waiting to strike, has people who love him. There is his mother, nurturing and serene, his butler, dutiful and kind, and his aunt, quick and lovely. He forgets all of them in time, but at the tender age of ten, they ruffle his hair or sneak him an extra snack, or in the case of his aunt, take him shooting.

“But I—”

“No buts,” she tells him firmly. “You need to learn to defend yourself.”

“But Dad has bodyguards for that!”

“Listen to your godmother—didn’t I just say no buts? Do you have your earmuffs on?”

The boy sighs. “Yes,” he grumbles. He’d like to be home and working on a project—it’s called spring _break_ for a reason, after all, not time for his aunt to show up and demand he come with her to the range—but his mom said he had to go.

His dad got mad at him last night for something he said at dinner, and building always makes him feel better. He loves his aunt, but—

The boy jumps as shots ring out, steady and pockmarking the center of the target. He hadn’t even realized his aunt got her gun ready. She sets her pistol back down, not a curl out of place after the commotion. She motions to the marks she left, neat and lethal on the target. “Today, our goal is just for you to hit the target,” she informs him. “You Starks are nothing but trouble, and I’d like to try and keep you out of some of it.”

The boy thought he wasn’t interested, but as usual, his aunt knows best. Her hands wrap around his, guiding his aim before she steps back and lets him fire—two-handed.

He tries to protest that—“You only used one hand!”

“That’s because I am very charming and know what I am doing. Two hands for now, darling, to steady yourself.”

“How does you being charming have anything to do with—”

“Let’s get you lined up.”

The boy, the first time, manages to graze the side of the target on one of eight shots. The gun is a little scary under his hands that seem much too small for something so strong, but his aunt tells him he can do it. “I’m right here, Tony. I won’t let you get hurt,” she promises, and the boy believes her.

By the end of the day, he can, at minimum, clip the target every time he tries. His hands ache, but his aunt smiles at him, telling him he’s done well and that they’ll get lunch anywhere he wants before she brings him back to the mansion.

After cheeseburgers and milkshakes, she tells him a story about her old friend, Captain America, and the boy pretends not to mind that she seems as fond of him as his father is.

(The boy knows his father likes the Captain much more than he likes his son.)

“I’ll see you later, darling,” she tells him with a quirk of her red lips as she drops him with the butler.

“Bye, Aunt Peggy,” he replies, and nearly a decade later, HYDRA will wonder how the son of a billionaire hits a bullseye every time he picks up a handgun.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Winter appears at the door a few hours later. “Fury wants you.”

“That’s nice.”

Iron looks at Winter, still seated at Peter’s bedside. He hasn’t left since they got him situated, not even for food, which Winter brings him every few hours. Iron told him he didn’t have to—they both know he’s gone longer without—but he says nothing and the meals keep coming. If Iron isn’t prepared to leave his room for food, he doesn’t know why Fury thinks he’s going to leave him because he asked.

Iron was unsure how much willpower he’d have when interacting with the people who sent Winter, considering the fog of his mind at the beginning of their attack, not to mention that his handler got a considerable way through the words before Peter stopped her, but it seems that, once loosed, he’s as disagreeable as he’s ever been. The bruise from the press of his muzzle has faded, and any vestiges of restraint on his tongue have disappeared with it.

“Tell Fury if he wants to talk, he knows where to find me.”

Winter eases himself back on the wall, composed except for the way his eyes linger on Iron and his mouth pinches just so. He’s thinking of what to say, and Iron prepares himself to be irritated as he opens his mouth. “I don’t like Fury either—”

“Good to know we’re on the same page.”

“—but he saved you and Peter with the leftovers of his piss poor ex-secret organization.”

“It’s not secret,” Iron mutters, fingers tightening in their grip on the side of Peter’s bed. “The Widow aired out SHIELD’s dirty laundry along with HYDRA’s, and it’s not like he rescued us out of the kindness of his heart.”

Winter has informed him that while getting a few potentially dangerous human rights violations out of HYDRA’s hands was a bonus, Fury was more interested in hard files that could’ve escaped the dump, which was what most of the infiltration crew was focused on. 

“And you’re ignoring the point.”

Iron forgets that while Winter is an open book to him, he can read him right back. It’s inconvenient, and he’d prefer to grapple with the idea that there is suddenly more to life than a never-ending series of faces he’s supposed to wipe off the map in peace.

“And if I am? I’m not leaving him. Fury can fuck off.”

“You owe him.”

Iron bristles, and a neat crack appears down the rail he’s holding. He lets go, flexing the hand that did it in an attempt to sate some of the angry energy building there. _Owing_ anybody is just another form of control, and he hates it as much as he hates any semblance of the manacles HYDRA kept him in, physical or not, for so long. His eyes darken, tension rolls over his body in a visceral wave, but Winter looks, at most, annoyed.

“I don’t _owe_ anyone anything. He chose to go after me, and he got some benefits out of it too.”

Winter rolls his eyes. “Fine, then. Think of it this way. You toss him a bone, give him something to work with, and it gives you a stake in things. You stay here forever and piss him off, and he’ll think up a bigger pain in the ass for you to deal with when he gets tired of you not listening.”

It’s a different game than the one he played with HYDRA. There, bargaining was nonexistent. If Iron didn’t listen outright, it was a simple matter of a bit of shock and a neat string of words to correct him. Here, he can have a say if he plays his cards right, and damn Winter for figuring out that he likes to feel like he owns the board.

His eyes narrow, but Winter isn’t finished.

“I’ll stay here while you go,” he says, but Iron doesn’t move.

A shift occurs on Winter’s features, and Iron sees anger cross his otherwise mild expression for the first time in their conversation. “I told you I’d take care of him,” he mutters, low and challenging.

 _Do you think I wouldn’t?_ is the add-on that Iron hears loud and clear from the rumble of thunder on Winter’s face, and that’s the safety net Iron needs for Peter.

He stands. “You stay until I come back.”

It’s not a request.

“He’s in the room we debriefed in when we first showed up.”

Iron heads for the door, and when he looks back over his shoulder one last time before he leaves, he’s greeted by the sight of Bucky in the chair he just vacated, elbows on his knees as he leans in and focuses his timeless eyes on Peter’s sleeping form.

Iron strides down the hall.

//

_LONG ISLAND - DECEMBER, 1991_

The funeral is on the twenty-seventh, in that purposeless space between Christmas and New Year’s that is supposed to be made of board games and watching whatever comes on the TV because there’s nothing more pressing to be taken care of. That’s what the boy assumes other families do, anyway. He’s usually busy putzing around his dorm after beating a hasty retreat back to college post-Christmas dinner. It’s better that way, or at least, it has been.

This year, the boy spends the day before the service frantically drafting his mother’s eulogy. He leaves Obie to take care of his father’s, too angry to care what’s said about him.

 _Nothing’s good enough—he can’t find the words—she’s fucking gone and he can’t do anything—it’s just him, and_ fuck, _what is he going to do? What’s going to happen to the company?_

He eventually finds a bottle of the bourbon his father never let him touch— _“That stuff’s too good for you to pass around a frat house.”_ —despite the blind eye he turned to every other version of the boy’s coping mechanism of choice. He wraps his lip around the mouth of it and welcomes the burn that makes his lines of chicken scratch hurt a little less.

He’s given all of the servants paid time off so he can just be left _alone_ , and he’s too drunk to hear and run from his aunt sticking her house key in the side door.

She finds him at the kitchen table, staring wordlessly at his sixth—seventh?—attempt, and he doesn’t react when she hazards a soft call of his name: “Tony?”

No reaction.

“Tony?” she asks a little more firmly, edging in closer from the doorway.

He doesn’t so much as blink, and she sighs. The first response she gets from him is when she wraps a dainty hand around the neck of the bottle and tries to pull it away. “That’s mine,” he mumbles, blearily glancing up from the table. The world is fuzzy, and he needs it to stay that way.

“Not anymore,” she replies curtly, walking away with it in hand.

He tries to stand and stumbles over the chair he’d been sitting on. “No— _no._ Give it back.”

“Absolutely not,” she refuses, headed for the sink.

“Give it _back,_ Aunt Peggy,” he slurs with a little more verve, trailing clumsily after her only to start into a toe-stubbing run when he sees her beginning to upend it into the drain.

He gets a hand on the bottle and tips it up, stopping the pour and not caring that twenty dollars worth of liquor sloshes onto his hand in the process. He begins to tug, trying to get it back.

“You can’t—you _can’t—”_

“You’re being ridiculous, Tony.”

“—I’m drinking it!”

“You’re _abusing_ it,” she snaps and, eventually, uses the momentum of the boy’s own efforts to smash it into the sink’s divider—hard. The glass shatters, and he watches brown liquid streak down towards the drain before his head snaps to face his aunt, tears glistening in his eyes.

The world has the consistency of honey, and he wonders why he’s crying over spilled bourbon.

She purses her lips—not red today, which is strange, the boy thinks, they always are—and fixes the boy with her _look_ that says she’s had quite enough of whatever he’s doing. He’s officially under her guardianship on the papers he had brought to him, but even social services can be bought off while he works on emancipation, which is to say she doesn’t know that. Regardless, she points severely to the living room that happens to be closest, which is just outside the kitchen, taking control of the power she doesn’t know she has.

The boy listens.

He sits with her and cries into her dry-clean-only dress as she runs a gentle hand through his hair and murmurs lullabies he hasn’t heard in years in her soothing accent until he’s sobered up just enough to have her help him write. The next day, she eases him out of bed with a few pills for his inevitable headache, and the boy keeps his eyes on her as he reads what he’s come up with, unable to handle anyone else’s judgment.

When he finishes, he goes back to his spot between her and his best friend, who each take one of his hands and squeeze.

“I’m here, darling,” she whispers.

“Good job, Tones,” his best friend adds, and the two of them, the aunt and the friend, share a glance.

The next day, the boy changes all of the locks on the doors.

Neither of them would be pleased to know how much alcohol he turns to, and he can’t handle losing anything else because he loves them too much to say no.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Fury wants blood work.

“No,” Iron responds bluntly, standing not quite at attention but certainly not casually near the door of the room. He’s plotted approximately four different escape routes should he be ambushed, including the use of the window. He’s working on how he’s going to break back in to get Peter as Fury responds.

“You’re not in a position to refuse me anything,” Fury grits out, obviously annoyed.

 _Good,_ Iron thinks. It’s been too long since noncompliance has gotten him anything less than a full-body beating, and while he’s not just being obstinate for the hell of it—the last time he had someone spend an extensive time studying him, he woke up with a hole in his chest—he does get something of a thrill from being able to say no without significant consequences.

Fury is a hardened man. Iron can see that from a simple glance at the set of his body, from the cut of his jaw to the staunchness of his shoulders, but he is still part of the better side of the SHIELD-HYDRA coin. He could not dream of the things HYDRA would do to wring their wants out of him.

He shrugs. “I don’t like doctors. Make Winter do it.”

A sigh. _“Sergeant Barnes_ has already allowed us to analyze some of his DNA, and as you can see, he lived to tell the tale.”

That’s another name Iron doesn’t recognize for Winter, but he doesn’t let it deter him. “Good for him,” he snarks back. He knows Winter said to try and find something to negotiate with, but Iron tends to avoid what he knows will come back to bite him. Having someone look at whatever the hell HYDRA’s done to his body is a great way to cause problems for himself, and he would prefer to bypass it altogether. “You’ve already taken a look at one of us, so you don’t need the other. Same trick, really, and it’s not happening, besides. Call me back if you have anything you’d actually like to discuss.”

He never gets to talk like this, let half the barbs that grow on the tip of his tongue fly, and it makes him giddy. True, Fury’s pressing some buttons he would rather see left alone, but they aren’t going to be able to _make_ him do anything. 

That’s a kind of comfort Iron forgot existed, and he isn’t above testing his limits to make sure it’s secure.

He heads for the hall, but his eye snags on a picture frame he can see much better exiting than entering the room.

Fury is saying something—

_“This conversation isn’t over, Soldier.”_

—but Iron isn’t listening. The photo, faded, in black and white in the first place, is of a woman. Her dark hair is perfectly coiffed, her lips painted some color lost to the camera. There is a twinkle in her eyes despite her straight face, and she’s wearing a military uniform.

Iron feels like someone’s just punched him in the stomach.

Something undefinable flashes through his head—a whiff of gunpowder and vanilla, a smile with a hue someone’s gone in and erased—a wisp that leaves him grasping for more at the edge of a cliff.

“Who is that?” he murmurs. There’s static in the air, like lightning about to strike, but he has to know, needs the information like the need to scratch an itch building painfully under his skin.

Iron assumes Fury follows his gaze to see what he’s talking about, but he’s too busy staring to check, memorizing the exact sweep of her hair across her forehead, the badges on her lapels—

“If you’re talking about the picture, that’s Margaret Carter.”

He rolls the name over and over again in his mind. It sounds right, but right in a way like hearing Pierce referred to as Mister Secretary before his grand plan blew up—literally—in his face. There’s a piece missing between the title and the person it’s describing.

“What did she do?” His voice has gone cold, different from the easy rebuking he’d given Fury earlier. He’s analyzing with the ferocity he normally reserves for a mission, which leaves little room for emotion to come through. “Why is her picture up?”

“This is SHIELD property. She and Howard Stark tend to show up, having founded it.”

“When was it taken?”

“Is there something you’d care to share, Soldier?”

“When was it taken?” he repeats, faster the second time. He ignores the use of the title he’s given the majority of them to use. It doesn’t matter, not really, not when they can’t give him orders.

Fury lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Mid to late 1940s, if I had to guess. _Why?”_

“And is she still alive?”

The desire to know is flaying him from the inside out, nettling and demanding even if he doesn’t know why. He _needs_ a definite answer. He has to have a definite answer because he’s not Winter; he doesn’t have Steve—doesn’t have a place to begin, but looking at the woman—

“Yes.”

—he thinks he might have found it.

“I need to see her,” he murmurs. In his chest, his light feels like it’s pulsing with the ache for it.

There’s a pause that goes on long enough for Iron to reluctantly tear his eyes away from the picture to look at Fury. He looks less than pleased, but not in the volatile, sharp way of his handlers.

Iron still doesn’t like him, but something in the pit of his stomach eases at the contrast.

“And why is that?” Fury grits out, a brow raised in an attempt at condescension that Iron doesn’t care about at the moment because—

“I know her,” he murmurs. “I _know_ her.”

And Fury, who sees a man who is simultaneously more immovable and untethered than any he’s ever met realize there might be something he can hold on to, finds an opportunity. “You let my people run a few tests, and I’ll get you to her.”

Iron doesn’t hesitate, his trepidation overpowered by the blistering, almost primal need to solve the mystery dropped in his lap. “Deal,” he agrees, and then considers, “but I’ll be conscious for anything they do.”

If he’s awake, he’ll be able to fight back if they try anything too bad.

Something crosses Fury’s expression that looks bizarrely out of place, and a beat too late, Iron places it as pity. “I can make that work, Soldier.”

It’s the first time since escaping that Iron finds himself wishing he’d just held his tongue.

//

_LONG ISLAND - JANUARY, 1992_

The boy’s aunt finds out he is missing when it is already far, far too late.

The boy is waking up strapped down to a table by the time she gets a call from Obie, and then the police. He is being tortured as she’s brought in for questioning, hating herself for not pushing more after he locked her and Rhodey out—he’s her _godson_ , and she just let him be taken right out from under her nose—and he is still being tortured as the case breaks the news.

_TONY STARK—MISSING_

_TONY STARK—GONE FROM FAMILY MANSION_

_TONY STARK—FOUL PLAY?_

She turns off the television and radio and devotes her time to using SHIELD’s resources for the search. It’s a lonely job without Howard by her side, even as belligerent as he’d somehow gotten, even as much as she’d yelled at him the last few years for the way he treated his son.

(She knows things were rough, but she’ll never discover where the bruises the boy says are from scuffles at his boarding school truly originate, won’t ever suspect that a friend so dear to her could be so cruel.)

The boy’s aunt spends countless sleepless nights and days reading the police reports, fills notebooks writing down everything she knows about the boy, the house, his enemies, has to take over another office just to fit all the files she gathers, and still, _nothing._ She looks and looks and looks to no avail because she never knows to peer within the organization she brought to life, and through it all, she can only hope that he’s somehow alive, that the brave, whip-smart seventeen-year-old she knew might manage to come back to her on his own.

On his eighteenth birthday, she takes her first day off work in several years and spends the day buried in her bedsheets, crying off the makeup she put on that morning in an attempt at normalcy.

Howard, Maria, and Tony—three people she somehow thought invincible wiped from the world in less than a month, and Obadiah doesn’t seem to be fazed.

They’ve had a falling out by then, an ugly, vicious thing on the aunt’s part while he stared at her as if she was a child, and she’s not sure she’ll ever forgive him for that, for acting as if she was overreacting when the boy that might as well have been a son to the two of them has disappeared.

She was furious that he carried on with the company, that he didn’t attempt to help other than the chunk of change—pathetically small for someone in his position, too—that he threw her way.

By the time the boy has forgotten his name, his aunt watches as Obadiah creates a small charity in his name, forced herself to abandon a widespread search without so much as a sniff of a lead.

She purses her lips and perseveres. It is not the first time the boy’s aunt has lost someone before their time, even if there is a horrible month every year where she can hardly think about anything but everyone that’s missing, and as the Iron Soldier is sicced onto the world, she is one of the few left to maintain hope that the boy is somewhere, somehow, alive.

//

_WASHINGTON D.C. - 2015_

The Captain drives, though he doesn’t look happy about it. The car moves smoothly under his ministrations, and Iron can’t stop himself from looking out the windows, staring at a world he can’t remember experiencing outside the mindset of a mission.

Their predicament—and yes, Iron considers it a _predicament_ because the Captain gets on his nerves even if he can’t place why—has been brought about by Fury, who, after watching his doctors steal a pint of Iron’s blood, says he’s arranged for an escort to go with him to the facility Margaret Carter lives at. At the initial announcement, he’d wondered why he was being trusted with a single guard, even if it was the Captain, but it only took a moment of deliberation to resolve that question.

SHIELD, from the brief time Iron’s been in their custody, understands that he won’t go anywhere without Peter.

Iron doesn’t talk to the Captain, and the Captain doesn’t talk to Iron, not until they’re walking into the place they tell him she stays in, though the smell of antiseptics and something musty makes his nose wrinkle upon first exposure.

They’ve given Iron the clothes of one of Winter’s friends, the one they call Sam, and they, for the most part, fit, even if they feel too light in comparison to his gear with ammunition enough to fight an army. He makes up for it with the weapons he shoved anywhere he can fit them, well-hidden along with the glow of the reactor from years of practice and a few extra layers.

No one other than Winter and Peter knows about the light here, and he’d like to keep it that way.

They’re standing in front of a wooden door, polished and dark with a brassy handle, and the Captain puts his hand on his wrist as he tries to open it. “If you do _anything_ to hurt her—” The threat trails off, but Iron doesn’t shy away from meeting the Captain’s eyes that hold a typhoon in their depths.

“I’m not an idiot,” he replies stonily. “I need SHIELD right now, so she’s safe.” He leans in a little. Both of their voices are quiet in the halls of the nursing home, but they have the ears to hear what’s being said three halls over; clarity isn’t why he closes the distance between them. “Now get your hand off me, or I’ll cut it off.”

Nearly face to face, the Captain can see every facet of his expression, and it’s important to Iron that he understands he’s not bluffing.

The Captain sparks something in him—a soreness to his cheek, something that burns in the back of his throat—and he has little patience for what might be a threat.

Iron pushes the door open.

//

Nearly twenty-five years since they saw each other last, the boy and his aunt meet again.

//

They told them when they showed up that an aide was going to be sent to wake Margaret Carter up, and she’s propped up as they enter. Her hair is in a halo of silver curls around her face, lightened with time but just as lovely as Iron somehow thinks it’s always been, and a hand with veins corded across its fine surface rises to cover her mouth.

Iron, uncharacteristically unsure of himself, takes a few tentative steps forward, mindful of the tears he can see rising in her eyes. He’s seen plenty of people cry before, from assignments who are afraid in their last moments to the lesser enhanceds HYDRA had him beat into the ground, but like with Peter, the woman is different. Iron is good at talking, at filling the quiet, though the skill is a little dusty after years in storage, but he opens his mouth and never gets the chance to try and break the ice that suddenly gives out from beneath his feet.

 _“Tony?”_ Margaret asks, and Iron is flipping, falling, having lost any handhold he thought he had. “Tony, is that you?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know what to say, which hasn’t happened since that night on the roof with Peter, though Iron’s memories of even that are still hazy, and the Captain breaks the ensuing silence made thick with confusion.

“Peggy, this is—”

“Tony,” she breathes again, sparing the Captain a moment’s glance. 

The second time, Iron barely hears her over the name the Captain has for her because that’s it, that’s the person behind the formality, and Iron can suddenly taste the last link missing.

He doesn’t know who Tony is, but he knows her. He comes to her bedside, and though he’s loathe to show vulnerability in front of the Captain, his lips turn with the barest form of a smile. “Hi, Aunt Peggy,” he greets her.

Her name surfaces unsummoned, like the image of Peter’s eyes all those years ago, natural, a balm on an open wound.

She stares at him, looking beyond his face and into his mind but not like his handlers do. Tears seep down her wrinkled cheeks, but her face is simple and kind. Peter is unguarded, earnest and trusting in his youth, but she has wisdom in the corners of her eyes and still hasn’t allowed experience to take anything from her.

An aged hand rises to cup his cheek, and something flickers in the depths of her eyes when Iron flinches. Her thumb strokes the space just to the side of his mouth, but she doesn’t say anything—not about his reaction, anyway. Her lips crush together, her head tips just so, and when her voice comes out, it’s cracked. “Where were you, darling?” she whispers, and the Captain doesn’t matter, has faded from Iron’s mind that doesn’t let anything escape its meticulous clutches and doesn’t care that the Captain shakes his head _no._

He’s grown rather skilled at avoiding details when asked such questions, anyway, another thing that reminds him of Peter. “Some idiots got ahold of me, and I had a hell of a time getting away from them,” he replies, but the humor of his words can’t mask the tenderness of his voice, a quality normally reserved for a child currently unconscious.

More tears, and Iron’s eyes widen as she tugs him to her in an embrace. HYDRA has no gentle touches, but he has never fallen into one of their manipulations like he does her arms, thin but feeling for all the world like protection.

(When was the last time Iron felt that? Has he ever?)

Being bent over her bed might be uncomfortable, but Iron realizes without any explanation that he’d endure things a thousand times worse if it made her happy. She holds on for longer than he thought she had in her, looking at her dilapidated, if graceful, shape on the bed, before her hold goes slack and he draws away, keeping a hand on hers because he has the idea that she might not have been ready to let go.

Peggy stares at him as he finds a seat like he examines a file for an assignment, like she’s afraid to forget anything she finds there. “You look tired, darling,” she tells him, and he shrugs, careful to not let the curve of his lips flatten.

“It’s been a long time,” he says, though he doesn’t know how long, doesn’t even know the source of the warmth glowing like coals in his bones at the sight of her. 

She squeezes his hand, the pressure ghosting at best. “You look so young, still,” she murmurs, eyes flicking down for a moment. Despite the obvious delicacy of her body, they still hold the twinkle he saw in the picture at the safe house, though it’s become murky with something Iron thinks is grief.

“Good genes,” he replies tightly, forcing his smile to grow. There’s no need to taint this, someone whose affections are so straightforward, with the nasty bits of how he’s come to sit at her side.

Like with his flinch, she doesn’t comment, but Iron feels the hollowness of his words in the look she gives him.

There’s a glint of something—a table, maybe, blurry handwriting—but it’s gone quickly, and Peggy turns her head to look at the Captain, her hand still wrapped around Iron’s. “Steve,” she calls to him. He’s standing farther away, and her acknowledgment of him reminds Iron that he’s even in the room. The Captain, staunch every other time Iron can remember seeing him, looks like someone’s tugging on his loose strings, but he comes over. “You have to meet my godson.” She looks to Iron, tears still drying on her cheeks but a smile beginning to form on her lips. “Tony, this is Steve. You remember all those stories I used to tell you about Captain America?”

He doesn’t, but he nods anyway, not wanting to upset her.

“This is him, but I suppose if you came in with him, you’d know that.”

He does, but he refuses to let on that Steve makes him angry in an unfamiliar way, despite how much time he’s spent being acquainted with the emotion in his life.

“It’s so good to see you two together,” she whispers, and Iron can hear her getting choked up again, to which he and Steve both hold her hand and do an admirable job of pretending they like one another as she talks about everything that’s changed, the gossip she gets from her aides, and so much more that settles nicely in Iron’s mind, every word confirming that he knows Peggy even if the only clear memory he has of her is the one he’s making at the moment.

“And Obadiah, well, we don’t get on anymore, but—”

She keeps talking, but _hate,_ vicious and burning, jackknifes through Iron, at the name—Obadiah. No, he thinks, expression gone to the thing that looms above his missions— _Obie._

It’s the same process that turned _Margaret Carter_ to _Aunt Peggy_ , but so much more volatile—a grenade’s reckless blast versus the finesse of a dagger’s slice. Iron is skilled with both, but at least a blade usually leaves a corpse whole. He experiences what he feels at the thought of Pierce, maybe even something stronger, and is struck with the urge to destroy that HYDRA normally has to pound into him— _gilded, revolution, two_ —but it feels natural, wanted, even. It feels—

“Tony?”

His features soften, his gaze and focus snapped back to Peggy.

“You’re gripping a bit tight, darling.” He drops her hand like it’s on fire. “Is everything alright?”

It is, in a way, because feeling the desire to _break_ is nothing that fazes Iron anymore, but he doesn’t want Peggy to see that face on him, see anything that might make her reconsider smiling at the sight of him.

“I’m sorry about your hand,” he says. “I was lost in thought. Are you okay?”

He should’ve known better, been more careful. It’s only been a few days since he was the Iron Soldier, since he was a Soldier at all, he should’ve _expected_ to be too rough—

She shrugs. “It’s fine.” And then, after a long second where she must see the panic he thought he knew how to hide, “It’s _fine.”_ She lifts her hand and swats his arm, and it’s so light in comparison to anything HYDRA would’ve done, it’s almost laughable. “Quit worrying. I’m old, not dead.”

On the other side of the bed, the Captain laughs under his breath. 

They talk a while longer, but Iron doesn’t take her hand again, letting her rest it over his arm instead.

(He can’t take a chance on the only person who seems to know who he was, even if asking her to explain his past self would tell her more than she can know.)

Finally, she yawns, and the Captain suggests that they should get going. She nods and has Iron lean in so that she can kiss his cheek. Like the hug, the motion is foreign, but any further thoughts he might have about it are derailed by what she says after she tells him goodbye: “Steve, would you stay a minute?”

Bitterness explodes onto Iron’s palate from something that’s too furious to be jealousy, but he makes sure none of it shows as he ducks out of the room to stand in the hall.

The door is well-crafted but not thick enough to block the words that filter through it to Iron’s keen ears.

“I know he’s not telling me everything. He never does, but you’ll take care of him, won’t you?”

Iron wasn’t aware that he was worth protecting, and the breath is quietly stolen from his lungs.

“Anything for my best girl,” the Captain replies, and the exchange loops in Iron’s mind on the drive back, which is nearly as quiet as the first, save for what Iron tells him as they get into the car—

“Don’t tell anyone anything she said. Not yet.”

—and the Captain’s surprisingly accommodating response, which Iron chalks up to his promise to Peggy.

“I won’t say anything until you give me the word.”

It’s all that occupies his thoughts until, nearly before they can get the keys out of the ignition when they pull up, the Widow appears in the window on Iron’s side, her guarded face filled with something he doesn’t care enough to decrypt.

Iron sighs. “Are you going to let me get out, or—”

“He’s awake.”

There is a moment where Iron freezes, the forge stilling for a fraction of a second, and then he nearly tears the car’s door off its hinges in his race inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dhdhfh I SWEAR I do not mean to keep leaving things on cliffhangers it just happens but enjoy!!


	11. Chapter 11

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_  


_He’s awake, he’s awake, he’s awake, he’s—_

The thought plays like a broken cassette, and Iron’s moved slower outrunning a gunfight than he does now, lunging through the winding halls of the route he’s memorized. He has to get to him, has to apologize, has to make things _right._

If there’s anyone who appears in his path, they’re ignored entirely, and finally, almost frantically, he steps through the doorway to Peter’s room, his heart in his throat, to find him talking with Winter.

Peter looks to him at his entry, and despite the ragged, skittish edge to his gaze, the only thing that Iron can think is that he’s _alive_ and _awake_ and, oh God, he’s _safe_.

Despite the fervor that carried him to his room, he somehow doesn’t know what to do. The last time he saw Peter—the last time he _coherently_ saw Peter, anyway, because being talked down from the Iron Soldier’s mindset and the subsequent rampage he went on when Peter got shot doesn’t count—he beat him into the ground. The thought hasn’t quite occurred to Iron in all the time he’s spent sitting vigil, but it comes now with all the subtlety of church bells ringing: does Peter even _want_ to see him?

He gets an answer almost immediately.

“Iron,” he breathes, and Winter puts his hands on his shoulders so he doesn’t hurt himself trying to sit up.

“Take it easy, kid,” he chides him, then shoots Iron a glare. “Would you get over here? He’s been asking for you since he woke up.”

For the umpteenth time, Iron is reminded that Peter is far too good to care about him, but he doesn’t fight the request. He settles into the chair Winter gives back to him, and Peter looks at him searchingly, his brows scrunched together. “You got the book, right?”

“The book?”

He nearly bled out trying to escape from a terrorist organization, and he’s worried about the _book?_

Panic creeps into Peter’s expression. “Did she get it? The book—the journal? The yellow one she was reading from?”

“I know what the book is,” Iron cuts him off before he can spiral any further. “It just wasn’t the first thing on my mind.” A breathless laugh follows the admission because of _course_ Peter isn’t worried about himself, and Iron watches the tension leach from Peter’s limbs at what he says next. “And yeah, I got it.” He pats his chest. He’s layered a vest under the casual shirt they’ve given him, and beneath that is the book, kept where he knows nobody will be able to read it.

He doesn’t need to spell it out for Peter, who by now knows that he tends to take more precautionary measures than are strictly necessary, and Winter’s likely already figured he hasn’t let the book out of his reach.

“That’s good, then,” Peter mutters, and his eyes skitter to the sheets covering his body. Winter’s still standing at the door, and Iron gets the impression that he’s waiting to be told to leave, but he can’t bring himself to ask.

Pierce’s taunt rings in his mind— _“You did a number on him, Soldier.”_

He can’t risk that again, though logically he knows he’s in control, there’s no one around who knows or would use his words against him. He has to make things right, but he doesn’t know how. He begins clumsily.

“Kid, I’m so sorry for—”

“Not your fault.”

The words are something of a croak, and Iron feels a frustration that once came to him on a rooftop years ago.

“No, you don’t get to say this isn’t important.”

A touch of irritation creeps into Peter’s tone. “It _is_ important, but it’s not your fault, so you have nothing to be sorry for. I forgive you.”

“I _hurt_ you,” Iron presses. It makes him sick, the thought of Peter’s slight form hammered into uncaring concrete, bleeding from his fists’ impact.

Peter scoffs. There is acid in the set of his young features, but it’s not aimed at Iron. “You didn’t have a _choice.”_

Iron feels frustration pull taut within him, and his fists clench at his sides. “I broke your fu—” Iron bites his tongue. The thorns he is rediscovering he has readied at all times are not meant for Peter. “I broke your bones,” he amends, his words barely softened enough to escape being a hiss. “You shouldn’t be ignoring that.”

Peter rolls his eyes, and Iron is suddenly reminded that he’s missed a lot with Peter. Sometime in his absence, Peter has become a teenager with what he’s realizing is the attitude to match. “Well, it’s fine. I healed up from it, anyway, and you’re going to have to deal with the fact that I’m not gonna’ hold it against you. You can’t convince me to hate you.”

The severity in the look Iron returns Peter’s stubbornness with could kill, and in the corner of his eye, he can see Winter come to attention in preparation.

He should push—Peter’s wrong, he _knows_ he’s wrong because even if he doesn’t blame him, he can’t just walk away from that situation without some trauma to show for it—but the more time he spends arguing with him, the more Iron realizes he’s putting off just talking to him, something he’s desperately missed in the time since he saw him last.

He meets Peter’s eyes, brown boring into brown like flint feeding into flame, and he lets out a long, measured sigh. “You’re a pain in the ass, kid,” he mutters, and Peter grins, toothy and pleased.

“Guilty as charged.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” he replies and has the audacity to sound miffed that Iron doesn’t believe him.

“We’re talking more about this later,” he threatens.

As if by the flip of a switch, the snark dissipates, leaving a reply significantly more candid than Iron expects from the kid refusing to give an inch: “If that’s what you want.”

Winter still looks tense, but the fire of their gazes is merely the coziness of a hearth, even if he can’t see it. Iron tosses a look over his shoulder, and though he doesn’t say anything, he’s confident that Winter will interpret that he’s under control. He looks back to Peter, whose gaze is darting between the two of them.

“You know, in retrospect, it’s really on me for not figuring out that you guys know each other.”

Iron lifts his brows.

“You guys hold yourselves, like, the exact same way.” As if to demonstrate, he puts his shoulders back and makes his expression blank, and a chill runs up Iron’s spine to prickle at the base of his neck. It’s not that simple, lacking their eyes that don’t stop scanning a room, the fact that they keep themselves close to an exit, but it’s a ghost of them, sure enough. Then, Peter puffs out his chest and shatters the illusion. “I’m very scary and good at brooding,” he mimics, deepening his voice, and Iron reaches over and messes with his hair.

 _“You little shit,”_ he growls, but there’s no heat to his words.

“I can’t believe I bothered busing to Queens for you, jerk,” Winter says from the door, echoing the sentiment.

For his part, Peter squawks but doesn’t try to bat the touch away, merely tipping his head in the opposite direction with a lopsided smile as his loose curls flop into his face. “You’re the worst,” he complains.

Iron hums, settling back into his chair and feeling more relaxed than he’s been in as long as he can remember. Coming down off his programming, that’s not an especially extensive period of time, but still. Not even speaking with Peggy left him like this, keeping a casual eye on the entryway but mostly just content to talk with someone who wants to listen—who understands what’s going on, even if he shouldn’t have to.

“Bad news, kid, I’m the least irritating person in this joint.”

“That is _so_ not true.”

Iron raises a brow. “Oh yeah? How would you know? The only one you’ve met is Winter, and I’m definitely better than him.”

From the door, Winter shoots him a glare, but Iron remains unfazed. That’s just Winter’s _I’m-annoyed-and-might-beat-you-up-later_ glare, not his _I’m-annoyed-and-might-actually-try-to-kill-you-later_ glare. There’s a difference, and it’s mostly in the brows.

Peter shrugs as if he can’t understand how Iron hasn’t already figured it out. “I’m here,” he informs him matter-of-factly.

Iron already said it, but the thought runs through his mind again— _what a little shit._

He could fight it more. If it were anyone else, he wouldn’t settle for anything less than the last word, but despite his snark and the enhancements he’s gained since he saw him last, Iron doubts Peter will be awake for very long and doesn’t want to waste all their time together teasing. So, he just shakes his head, looking at him with the slightest uptick to the corner of his mouth. “I missed you, kid. It’s good to see you safe.”

Not pale and scared in the training room, not as a figment of his grisly imagination because Pierce knows how to press his buttons, not as his body crumples at the hand of the woman who’s already taken so much from him—safe.

Peter’s mischievous expression softens into something open. “It’s good to see you too,” he replies, and where Iron’s confession leaves an unpleasant film over his tongue, Peter’s doesn’t appear to pain him at all, nor does his follow-up. “Can you come here?”

“If you try to mess up my hair as revenge—”

Peter snorts. “I’m not gonna’. I would go to you, but I’m pretty sure I’ll scream if I try to stand.”

The beginning of a smile disappears from Iron’s face like it hurts to maintain it.

With the easy conversation between the two of them, he almost forgot why Peter’s laid up in the first place, the number HYDRA did on him while he was too busy being brainwashed to help that then got topped off with a bullet to his side.

“‘Course, kid. Anything you want,” he tells him and leans in.

He should’ve known what to expect, but it always takes him by surprise, the ease with which Peter embraces him.

The bar of the bed’s railing digs into his stomach as his arms raise to return the motion, but Iron doesn’t care, hardly even notices, and when Peter’s face is pressed over his shoulder for a supernaturally long second, that’s when the first sob comes.

His body lurches against Iron’s, and he tries to draw back on instinct, afraid he’s somehow hurt him, only to find that Peter’s grip is too strong to break out of. Iron tenses, unsure of what’s happening, and then small, watery words slot delicately into the shell of his ear.

“I was so scared,” Peter whispers, and though Iron doesn’t understand reaching for someone else for comfort when he’s spent so long shouldering his own burdens, he comprehends that Peter is holding onto him so he doesn’t fall entirely to pieces.

“You’re here now,” Iron murmurs in reply. “I have you, and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you—promise.”

It’s his second hug of the day, which is more than he’s gotten in years. It might be overwhelming in another situation, but Iron is nothing if not skilled at pushing past his personal boundaries. For Peter, they’re hardly there, anyway.

Peggy managed to make him, someone who doesn’t even deserve it, feel protected, and now it’s his turn to pay that forward. One of his hands rises to cup the back of Peter’s neck, toying gently with the hair he finds there, and Peter sags into the touch with a full-body shudder. He’s scarcely understandable, gasping out tearful apologies, and when Iron takes the time to register anything beyond the warmth of him under his hands and the wet spots forming on his shirt, he sees that Winter’s vacated the room.

“Oh god, I’m sorry—I’m _sorry_ , I told myself not to cry—I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” Iron chides, shushing him gently when he breaks off to suck in air. “It’s okay. I’m here, kid, and you were so brave. You saved me, know that?”

“She—she had your book—and I was getting through to you—and I—and she—”

“But you got it, and we’re both safe.” He reaches for one of Peter’s hands, pulling it to his chest, and just like he did the first time he touched it, Peter jolts at the shape of his light. Then, his hand tightens just so to hold onto it, and Iron lets him, ignoring the burn that spiderwebs across his chest as a result. “I’m here,” he repeats, lower, and he can feel Peter nod, his chin digging into the bone of his shoulder.

Iron rubs his back, and if a flash of blue eyes— _“Shh, bambino.”_ —or red lips— _“Oh, darling.”_ — flits across his memory, it’s gone before he can acknowledge it.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

“I thought he was going to lunge for him at one point,” Bucky tells Natasha later that night over chips, dip, and a romantic comedy—her pick, not his. “Kid refused to listen to him. I’ve seen him look less pissed with a knife a few inches from his throat.”

“And did he?”

Bucky reaches for a chip, which he puts a gratuitous amount of dip on, to the point that Natasha wrinkles her nose. On his own, he didn’t have the money to spend on things flavored like sour cream and onions, and he appreciates the small luxuries of life. 

He chews and swallows before responding. “He messed up his hair and bickered with him, and when I left, they were holding on to each other.”

He wouldn’t tell Steve or Sam as much. They wouldn’t understand, not like he and Natasha do, what accepting touch means to someone like them. 

Natasha looks up at the ceiling, and behind the green of her eyes she keeps carefully blank, he can see her mind working. “Must be some kid,” is all she says.

Bucky thinks of how he’d clung to Iron like he was the only thing keeping him alive, like if he could just grip him tight enough, all of the shit HYDRA put him through would go away. He hasn’t shared that particular detail with Natasha, and he doesn’t plan to.

He shrugs and takes another chip, and Natasha doesn’t push.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Peter is drowning. The lights of the lab are searing in his eyes, and he can’t move them to blink. There’s a weight on his chest—spreading throughout his whole body and centered where Iron’s light sits in his sternum—and it’s crushing him—killing him.

Peter tries to call for help, for mercy, but his lips don’t move, can’t even choke on an aborted attempt at producing sound. 

His breaths are shallow, but the doctors bustle in the corners of his vision with their long coats and tight gloves, clinical and uncaring of his fear. Peter wants nothing more than to tear through the straps immobilizing him, though they’ve already drugged him with what they tease are the sedatives they use for Iron.

_“If the Soldier can’t snap out of it, you don’t stand a chance, little bug.”_

The Soldier, they call him, but he’s not—he’s Iron, warm from the heat of a forge and impenetrable—indomitable. He smiles and laughs and _cares_ so much, enough to risk everything to see him, to fix the crime he hates himself for. Peter thinks things might be better if he could just see him, see _anyone_ who doesn’t look at him as only the sum of his parts, but a doctor is coming towards him with a needle, and everything already hurts— _no, no, no, no, no_ —he can’t do this again, can’t wake up with another scar he doesn’t know the procedure behind—

“Spider,” he begins, the name some of them have started using ever since they saw him flinch when one of them said it as a joke. “I want you to meet my assistant. He’s new.”

Peter wants to clench his eyes shut. He has no interest in learning a new face in the seemingly never-ending line-up of people ready to open him up and take a look inside, but of course, he can’t.

The pressure on his chest grows, and Peter doesn’t know how he’s still breathing as a face, covered with a mask, comes into view. However, the mask the new figure wears isn’t the starchy white of the surgeons’, papery and round over their smiling mouths. No, Iron wears the one he always has, and his eyes are the dead, impersonal things that saw his parents killed, that pummeled him into the ground until he couldn’t so much as scream to let some of the pain out. 

He holds a scalpel, gleaming like a wink of moonlight in his skilled hands.

“We’ve decided to experiment with forgoing anesthesia. My assistant is very talented, so he should be able to keep you alive.”

Peter feels fear claw up the back of his throat, hot and caustic, but Iron merely stares down impassively, and when the doctor motions for him to begin, he brings the scalpel down, down, _down—_

Peter wakes up with a breath so sharp it’s painful, and there—sitting just to his side—is Iron.

Peter’s racing heart brings with it memories of the slump of his body when the woman finished with her words, the single-minded ferocity with which he attacked, and then the scalpel ready to carve into his weighted chest.

Peter wrenches away from him, ignoring the blistering pain in his side and down his back, heaving a leg over the side of the bed he’s been placed in—a bed like the one they put him in when he could hardly move because they threw him in with Iron—in an attempt to escape. He’s in danger here, the base of his spine is crackling with it, and he has needles and steel popping like firecrackers in and out of his head and leaving him to jump at their impact.

He’s nearly to his feet, crying out against the pain but pushing through in his panic to get away, when Iron appears in front of him and places his hands on his shoulders, the motion firm, not crushing.

Peter freezes, bracing for the worst. He ducks his head, looks away, and clenches his eyes shut, but there is nothing but the sound of labored breathing in the room and the strong but somehow gentle clamp of Iron’s hold.

Then, softly—“Peter?”

If possible, Peter goes even more rigid. This is another trick, another way HYDRA has found to torment him, but there’s no pain to follow his name—one they never use, preferring epithets or jeers assuming they bother addressing him at all. It doesn’t make sense, and even if Peter fears the doctors and their experiments, he at least knows how they operate. This is something new, and he can’t stop himself from cracking his eyes open in an attempt to understand it.

Iron’s face is only a few feet from his, but his lips are parted, his brows knitted with worry. The apathy Peter feared isn’t there, but he can’t stop himself from glancing around, searching for notepads, antiseptics, and tools he doesn’t want to know the uses for.

There is nothing but a handful of empty chairs and machines set up at the edges of the bed to meet his paranoia.

“Let’s lay back down, okay?” he suggests softly to Peter’s wide, terrified expression.

Peter’s mostly out of his bed, and his body _pulses_ in protest, which is much harder to fight when he’s not seized with mind-numbing terror, funnily enough. He lets Iron manipulate him, though he puts stiffness in his limbs out of force of habit, one of the few ways he had to remind himself that he was still human as HYDRA took possession of him for their purposes.

(He shudders to think of what they might have done with the many samples they took from him, how they must’ve twisted his body to bring more suffering into the world, everything Peter’s been working against.)

It hardly matters that he makes Iron’s job that tiny bit more difficult. He handles him like he’s feather-light in anchored, confident movements that would be graceful if Peter didn’t know the lethal strength hidden in the same hands that lay him back down to rest.

Peter’s chest is still racing, and he resists the urge to tell Iron to _get away_ or _not touch him!_ He’s aided by the bullet wound sapping the strength from his body, which is smarting at his attempt at flight, and Iron draws away as soon as he’s able, his dark eyes sweeping over his body with concern Peter has learned to recognize.

(Concern—and hurt.)

“I can get Winter if that’s what you want,” he offers in Peter’s continued silence. “Or the Captain. I can leave.”

 _Captain America,_ Peter’s brain supplies helpfully. Before Iron showed up, Bucky filled him in on where they’re hiding out, everyone that’s around, but it still blows his mind a little to think about, a literal superhero walking around the same building he’s in.

He shakes his head.

Iron is—

(He doesn’t know exactly what Iron is right now, with his mind feeding him memories of him at his most savage, Peter at his most vulnerable, and the pain running through all of it.)

He knows Iron. He thinks he could grow to know Bucky, and the idea of Captain America is nice, but they’re not him, not quick feet darting across window sills and math problems made easy.

“No—I’m—I—” What are the words for what he’s feeling, the urge to shrink and disappear so that nobody can get their hands on him and the simultaneous, gutting need to cling so that he doesn’t flake away altogether? “Don’t go.”

“Kid, it’s okay to be scared. I hurt you. I’m not going to be mad if you don’t want to see me, but you can’t move just yet.”

He says that, but when Peter looks up from microanalyzing the fibers in the sheets he’s torn from their neat tucks under his mattress, his face has a wounded look that Peter nearly recognizes from the night he told him he forgave him. Though the same twisted hate for himself is spiny and evident like it was then, it’s mingled with something raw—something betrayed.  
  


It’s true that Iron hurt him. Peter understands that, and he knows Iron didn’t have a choice, but even if he somehow pushed past the oily fear in the recesses of his lungs to get through to Iron back with HYDRA, Peter is still irrationally, cruelly _petrified_ off the heels of his dream, something he doesn’t have a prayer of reigning in.

Peter knows panic attacks, but this isn’t like what he’s experienced before. This is paralyzing, and the numbness and routine he’d established in that terrible, never-ending time with HYDRA aren’t enough to save him now.

“Don’t go,” he manages to breathe, and his hands shake as they clench the railings of the bed so hard they begin to splinter.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Iron watches Peter until he falls back asleep, and almost entirely uninterrupted, a single judgment plays through his head on loop, prompted by Peter’s attempt at humor when he first woke—what Iron now understands was him staking control over his surroundings—and his subsequent breakdowns.

 _You little liar,_ Iron thinks, and though it’s not important, not really, not when Peter never should’ve had to experience an inkling of the torment Iron has long accepted, it still stings to know that he was right to think that Peter has always been too good to be true.

Come morning, Iron hasn’t slept any more since the few hours he caught before Peter’s nightmare-induced shouting woke him, though his thoughts have managed to marginally drift to what Peggy told him, but Winter appears in the doorway like he has been for the past few days. 

Iron waves.

“Fury wants you.”

Fuck.

“No.”

“I’ll stay with h—”

“He asked me not to leave. I’m not going anywhere.”

Winter sighs, but like with most things that involve the two of them, he seems to read the situation for what it is. “I’ll tell him,” he relents, though Iron would wager Winter’s hardly passionate about his duties as a messenger, “but don’t be surprised if he just shows up here. He seemed like he wanted to actually talk. Something about blood work,” he adds, shrugging.

Iron blinks, surprisingly tired for someone who’s used to taking drugs to keep him going more often than he gets to sleep. “Tell him to have at it,” he responds dryly. “I’ll be here.”

Here with Peter, who fears him more than he’ll admit, here with the only proof he has that he’s not always a monster until he can figure out what Peggy meant when she called him Tony. He waits with Peter, smoothing his covers as he notices Winter eyeing them before he leaves, and when he hears footsteps come back, he knows immediately that Winter was right to suspect that Fury would come see him personally.

“You’re a hard man to get ahold of, Soldier,” he drawls as he walks inside.

“Part of my charm.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed someone in your position would be so quick-witted.

Iron flips through his memories, but though there’s a vague impression of the man, he can’t remember exactly how they’ve seen each other before, how Fury would’ve witnessed him with his muzzle on.

His fingers tighten minutely on his chair’s armrests. “I’ve got a lot to say. It’s been a minute since I haven’t been gagged.”

And Iron knows, though it always brings pain in the end, that talking is a very good distraction to keep people from looking too deeply into the truth of certain matters.

Fury levels a glare at him, and it makes the hair on Iron’s arms stand on end to find that he can’t fully decipher the meaning behind it. He does not betray his unease, doesn’t so much as blink as Fury speaks, still keeping distance between himself and Iron, or rather, Iron thinks, himself and Peter.

(Iron has done nothing to disguise that he would flay someone who so much as looked at Peter the wrong way alive.)

“Your blood work came back,” Fury informs him, and there’s a weight to the statement Iron can’t place and also can’t say he likes.

He raises a brow. “Did it?”

Fury doesn’t miss a beat. “Are you aware, Soldier, that according to our readings, you’re suffering from heavy metal poisoning?”

Iron does blink, then. That is definitely _something_ , for lack of a better term.

It’s not exactly surprising, considering the cocktail of questionable shit HYDRA’s pumped into him over the years, but no, technically speaking, he is not. He, for once, has to take a second to think before he can come up with what to say, and his silence— _damnit_ —seems to tell Fury all he needs to know, judging by the smug quirk to his lips.

Iron is aware he’s prickly where other people’s knowledge of him is concerned, but even he can admit Fury probably deserves that bit of satisfaction for how uncooperative he’s been.

“And if I was?” He leans back in his chair, a calculated move to insinuate that he is unbothered, though he never enjoys having information be placed out of his reach.

“Would you be interested, by chance, in _fixing_ it?”

Iron shrugs. “I could be persuaded.”

And Fury actually laughs. “Yeah, I bet you could, Soldier.” His hand digs into his pocket, and Iron stiffens, expecting a gun or a blade, only for Fury to filch out a syringe. That might make him tense up again, but Fury tosses it his way as soon as he pulls it out. Iron catches it out of the air in a smooth motion, careful of the needle, and he looks to Fury with his question clear on his face. “Barnes and Romanoff,” _Winter and the Widow,_ Iron privately amends, “informed me I should let you take care of injecting it. It’s lithium dioxide, and it should help with the symptoms while it phases out of your system. My people are saying your metabolism has been holding it remarkably at bay.”

Iron stares down at the glass of the syringe and the clear liquid inside. It’s a lot of information to take in, and his instinct is to not trust it. However, he thinks of Winter, of his casual ease around the property and the people he worked with to rescue him and, more importantly, decides that if HYDRA didn’t kill him, SHIELD won’t be what does. He flips his wrist over, the contours of it casting shadows in the light, and slips the needle into the most obvious vein there without flinching. 

Almost immediately, he feels a previously unnoticed ache, shrouded in all the other infinitesimal agonies he’s been put through, fade. He feels lighter than he has in longer than he can remember, and he straightens up a little in shock, registering a tightness shirk specifically from his sternum.

Oh. _Oh._

He can’t stop the annoyance that suddenly illuminates his face from appearing. Voicing the emotion is a straightforward affair— _“Goddamnit.”_

Now it’s Fury’s turn to be surprised, and Iron can’t even properly enjoy it, pissed as he is. “Soldier?” he asks.

Iron knows better than to do something that would so obviously give him away, but he longs to place a hand over his chest, feel what he suddenly realizes is the source of more problems than he’d thought.

“The shot’s good, but it won’t work forever. I’m still being poisoned.”

“By _what?”_ Fury presses, and the smugness from earlier is gone, replaced with irritation, Iron notes with a tragically faint curl of vindication.

“None of your business,” Iron snaps back, though his mind is frantically running through his options, rapidly coming to the conclusion that he’s going to have to invent a new solution for himself because palladium poisoning isn’t something to sniff at, even if it is killing him at an _excruciatingly_ slow pace—thank you, HYDRA-induced enhancements, and if he thinks about it, probably cryo freeze too.

“You know the shit I have jumped through to get your baby-face here?” Fury bites back heatedly.

Iron rolls his eyes, ignoring the jab. “We’ve been over this. You had your own motivations; you’re not guilt-tripping me into being particularly _grateful._ I’m gonna’ need a lab. I’ll get you a list of everything that needs to be in it.”

“Get you a lab? You do understand how many problems you’ve caused me, right? You’re not getting _anything_ until I get an explanation.”

“Well, then I guess you put a lot of effort into saving someone only to let them die,” Iron snaps.

“I guess I did,” Fury agrees, and whatever amusement was on his face momentarily is gone, leaving a cold slate that is making its way to the door as Iron turns the information and where it leaves him over and over in his head, searching for weak points, anyplace he might be able to infiltrate.

He comes up empty-handed.

He knows—viscerally and unshakably—that letting people know about his light, about any vulnerabilities, is a bad idea. He’s had it ripped from his chest before for particularly intense punishments, has had to fix himself as his flesh charred because one of the other Soldiers knocked it out of alignment or broke something in it during training. Everyone has an agenda, maybe especially Fury, and even if being with SHIELD is a step up from HYDRA, Iron isn’t stupid. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem he has much of a choice. He can put it off, but there’s no denying that he’ll have to fix his _condition,_ to put it mildly. 

Iron, for as much as he overwhelmingly despises the people who have put him through hell on earth, is ultimately a creature of logic. Today, that appears to mean exposing himself, but if he plays his cards right, he can at least keep the information from spreading any farther than Fury.

It’s all a series of gains and losses, and Iron is well-versed in the latter. A little more is nothing he can’t manage, or at least that’s what he tells himself to make the notion of what he’s about to do less daunting.

He calls out to Fury with gritted teeth— _“Wait.”_

It’s not ideal, but he’ll have to make do, and even Fury can’t fully mask the surprise in his eyes when Iron explains exactly what lies under his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually, this man (Tony) will get a break, but today is not that day. In my defense, I need palladium poisoning as a plot point so SOMEONE (still Tony) can rediscover his past! We are getting there slowly but surely folks, and thank you for reading regardless. <3 
> 
> In other news, this fic has [art](https://sreppub.tumblr.com/post/620503498210066432/drew-some-tonies-from-my-darling-ambivalentmarvel) now! I’ve also linked it in the general notes for this fic—which have been updated with other information, too, like the anticipated word count of this fic, so I encourage you to take a look at them if you haven’t already—but my lovely friend [sreppub](https://sreppub.tumblr.com) on Tumblr drew a few Tonys from this fic, one of which is from the flashbacks from last week’s chapter! Please give them some love, and I’ll see you guys next Sunday!


	12. Chapter 12

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_  


Iron stares at the screen in front of him, willing it to work, willing something to come of the simulation he’s plugged in.

Because if it doesn’t, well—

Iron has a better outlook than a non-enhanced in his situation would, but his clock is ticking. He made a list of all potential replacement materials for palladium, but as he’s discovered with the technology and materials SHIELD has so kindly provided him, none of them work.

Provided this doesn’t either—and his eyes stay on the progress bar that is counting down the seconds until he’ll have his answer—he has the option of going out with a roar or a whimper.

If Iron was alone, he’d roar until the walls shook with it, but he can’t do that to Peter, to Winter.

Peter is up and about, a week after first gaining consciousness, talking with Winter, Fury, the Captain, Sam, even the Widow, but none of them have an answer yet for what he keeps requesting every chance he gets: a timeframe for when he can go back to see his aunt. Fury says he’s had people posted around the apartment building ever since the initial rescue, but HYDRA’s going to be watching her too. There’s no easy solution, and at the very least, they have to give HYDRA time to focus its attention elsewhere or find some way to beef up SHIELD’s protective measures before Peter can be anywhere near her.

He hasn’t taken it well, and the nightmares are a recurring problem. Iron can’t leave him just like that, not when HYDRA’s raided his life and left Peter floundering in the ashes.

As for Winter, sure, he has the Captain and the other two who seem to flock around him, but Iron knows the loneliness of being the only one left.

If nothing else, he can ease the two of them into it versus forcing them to deal cold turkey, but he’s being pessimistic. He can fix this, can make this last thing work. It’s going to work, it _has_ to work.

The computer beeps, and a message appears, fit concisely into a short pop-up: _SIMULATION FAILED._

(There is no way to make it work, and Iron is doomed.)

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 1 WEEK AGO_

Iron waits for Peter to wake up. By the time he does, he’s already given Fury a lengthy list of supplies he needs stocked and has come to terms with the whole _he’s dying_ business, which takes him back more than he thought it would.

If it was just pain, it wouldn’t be so much to deal with. He’s been in pain since coming into existence. His chest is a never-healing wound, red and irritated around a reminder of his failure, and he has been wiped more times than he can remember. It is not the pain that is new, just the idea that it will end him. Iron has always known that as long as he remains useful, he will not be disposed of. HYDRA was only ever interested in making his life hellish enough to force his hand; this is suffering without purpose, and he doesn’t quite know how to deal with it, even if it’s sunk in.

He pretends nothing is wrong as Peter blinks groggy eyelids open, a far less worrying way to come to than the wild thrashing from his nightmare.

(Iron hasn’t forgotten the terror in his eyes when they came to rest on him.)

“Iron?” he groans.

“Right here,” he assures him, though he’s nudged his chair farther away so that Peter might feel safer. “How are you feeling?”

Peter yawns, arms stretching above his head with it. “Better,” he admits. “My body hurts less than before, especially my side.”

Fury informed him post-poisoning reveal that they’ve been pumping him with the painkillers the Captain uses, but even so, Iron is surprised to hear there’s no residual soreness from his attempt at fleeing the room not even twelve hours earlier.

He quirks a brow. He doesn’t see a reason for Peter to lie, but at his confusion, Peter shrugs. “I heal faster than you and Bucky. Assuming you guys have been giving me more than the minimum nutrition it takes to keep me alive and have actually let me sleep, my body’s probably taking care of it.”

Winter told him what Peter said to him as he dragged him out of his cell, but Iron’s stomach rolls to think of how Peter would’ve found that information.

“Spider-y enhancements, right?”

Peter laughs, presumably at his terminology. “Yeah, but it’s kind of a long story.” Something in his expression grows pinched, and Iron takes that as his cue to move things away from that topic of conversation. He doesn’t want to force him to talk about anything, not when he’s clearly still scared of him, even if he won’t admit it.

There’s plenty to dig into instead.

“How much do you remember of last night?” he asks, testing the waters.

Peter’s face slackens in what Iron thinks is an attempt to disguise the emotion he feels, but he’s always been terrible at tucking the heart he wears on his sleeve out of sight. “Enough,” he responds, and despite his monotone, there’s a wobble to his voice that betrays him. “I know I tried to run from you.”

Iron saw it— _lived_ it—but hearing Peter acknowledging the incident makes it real, more than a figment of Iron’s very inventive and occasionally tempestuous mind.

“We have a place to start then.”

“I don’t—”

“I told you earlier that we’d talk about it later. Now’s later.”

“It’s not a big deal, really,” Peter insists, but his gaze is downcast and his knuckles are white in their grip on the sheets. “I just had a bad dream.”

“I’ll believe you when your bad dreams don’t convince you to run from the room in spite of a gunshot wound and a few months of torture.”

His voice is a touch too cold for what the conversation needs, but Iron is very, very good at looking at things through an objective lens. It’s how he’s coped with HYDRA for years, and everything, from hatred to pain, is easier if he thinks about its purpose versus how it affects him personally. Ergo, Peter’s various breakdowns can be analyzed and attributed to various elements of his life, and Iron is safely within what he knows—reason, logic.

Peter’s reply comes out with all the harmony of an instrument wound too tight, which is to say with none at all. “I’m _fine,”_ he all but spits. “I _know_ it wasn’t your fault, okay? I know that, rationally, but my head doesn’t get it.”

“It’s okay if you blame me. Or you don’t want to be around me. I get it. I won’t be mad.”  
  
He deserves it, he’s horrible, he’s cruel, he’s—

“I _don’t.”_

“But if you did—”

 _“Stop it.”_ The words come out with a snap, and Tony is surprised by the intensity of the instinct to obey that flares up, snapping his jaw shut. “I’m saying I don’t blame you, but—but they did a lot of stuff to me, and I’m _working on it._ I’ve only been awake for a few hours, anyway, which isn’t, you know, a great adjustment period. I want you around. You’re— _shit_ —” Iron notices his breaths start to come shorter. “—you’re the only person I really know here.” Iron opens his mouth to protest that he knows Winter, that Winter is probably far more under control than him after being out for so long, but Peter shakes his head. “I’m not done. You gotta’ stop offering to leave. It’s freaking me out. I need you.”

Iron stares at him skeptically.

“I _need_ you,” he repeats more firmly. “I’m not scared of you, but I’ve got a lot going on. So sometimes, I guess I’ll freak out. And I’ll _really_ need you when that happens.”

It doesn’t make sense. True, Iron does his best to protect him, but he very clearly failed. He’s incompetent—there’s no reason for Peter to keep him around, especially not when he’s a threat.

Iron’s brow knits. “You can tell me to go,” he stresses. “I’ll listen.”

“I don’t _want_ you to go.”

Their gazes lock, but despite Peter’s breathing that still isn’t quite back to normal, he doesn’t back down.

Iron doesn’t believe him, exactly, but he’ll do what Peter asks as long as he insists. He raises a brow. “Fine,” he agrees, though his tone betrays exactly what he thinks of the situation. “But just say the word, and—”

_“Iron.”_

“You have a lot to say today.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“Would it surprise you to know that you’re not the first person to tell me that?”

Of course, HYDRA would’ve expressed the same idea far less kindly, but the concept stands.

Peter laughs, and that’s all Iron needs to hear. He relaxes a fraction, releasing tension he didn’t realize his body held, and leans back in his chair. “So, you said there was a story behind the powers?”

Peter ducks his head with a sudden and _bright_ flush, and yeah, Iron’s getting that one out of him.

Peter starts talking, and when he’s done, true, Iron will tell him that Fury found a problem he’s going to be working to fix. Iron just can’t bring himself to shatter the tenuous peace settled between them by telling him that what’s gone awry is with him.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

“I’m going to die,” he tells Winter.

It’s simple—blunt, and the information falls with a clunk between the two of them in the dead of night. Iron stays up in the lab probably more than is healthy, but HYDRA never let him rest until a project was done. Even stopping long enough to see Peter, get food, is difficult, feels wrong down to his bones, his twitching fingers and the manic light in his eyes demanding that he _workworkwork_ until it’s done.

Luckily, Winter’s sleep schedule isn’t exactly the model of perfection either, and at approximately three in the morning, the two of them are a nice set, too chipped at the edges to slot together but a mirror of one another all the same.

They stand in the kitchen of the hideout they’ve somehow found themselves in, much nicer than any HYDRA base but just as out of the way. Winter’s metallic grip clenches on the mug he holds. If Iron had the energy in him to care, he might be worried that he’ll break it, but there’s a certain inevitability in looking at his fate that leaches concern, amongst other emotions—rage, fear, to name a few—from his thoughts.

He keeps speaking. “I haven’t told Fury. Or Peter.” That the other three wouldn’t be informed is a given. He hasn’t seen much of them, and he’s perfectly fine with that. “Figured you were a good place to start.”

And for as much pain as the news might cause Winter, he is. There’s always been a timer on their relationship, the thought that someday they’d find a mission going pear-shaped or themselves pushing a superior too far that would end with HYDRA deciding they were more trouble than they’re worth.

Iron can’t imagine he’s looked at life fondly the entire time he’s been with HYDRA, but he doesn’t want to die now, not when everything he’s ever craved is nearly within reach. It’s a taunt more malicious than anything HYDRA’s thrown his way, to be denied it all when he can taste it, but Iron nearly forgot something else, lost in feeling poorly for himself: Winter doesn’t want to see him disappear either.

Winter’s jaw clenches. “You’re not going to die. You’re too smart for that. There’s something you’re missing.”

Iron shakes his head, staring at the tile of the floor. “I’ve run every combination, permutation—there’s nothing. It’ll take a while,” there’s not even any visible evidence of the poisoning yet, “but it’ll kill me. For as long as I’ve had the damn thing, I should’ve kicked the bucket way before now. Only thing keeping me going is the stuff they juiced us up on, but hey, bodes well if you or Captain Spangles ever get stuck with something similar.” He laughs forcedly at the idea but is cut off by the sound of ceramic hitting the ground.

Winter grips the pulverized handle of his coffee mug, and an earthy smell wafts up from the shards of mug on the ground. He doesn’t appear bothered—not by the cup, at least.

“Don’t joke, asshole,” he growls, turning to shove the remains he holds into the trash. “You’re not dying. Not now. You outlasted them—now you gotta’ see what the world has to offer.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but Iron doesn’t get the chance to tell him that’s all it is. Winter stalks out of the kitchen, and Iron wishes he could change the truth of the matter if only to wipe the gnarl of hurt off his face.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2 DAYS AGO_

Peter finds him in the lab.

He’s been cleared to walk around due to his “incredibly advanced healing factor”—a phrase Peter flinched to hear and Iron has since made a point of avoiding—and he’s been exploring their little hideout for the past few days.

Iron is neck-deep in making another model of the reactor to test different cores with, and his words reach him as he’s smelting a bit of circuitry together, tight and angry.

“When were you going to tell me?”

Iron hums, only half listening. “Tell you what? That Winter’s the worst? Cause I kinda’ thought you were smart enough to figure that one out on your—”

_“When were you going to tell me?”_

Now that, Peter hurling the words out so violently Iron all but feels them hit the back of his head, catches his attention. He looks up to find him with his jaw and fists clenched, standing in the doorway and visibly furious. “Kid?” he ventures.

“Don’t,” Peter hisses. “Answer me.”

And Iron can beat around the bush all he wants, but there’s a secret he’s been meaning to get to for days but just can’t, not when Peter smiles and laughs along to he and Winter ribbing each other and doesn’t even flinch when there’s a crash somewhere else in the building, not when he hasn’t tried to fight the nurse that comes to check on him in days, not when he almost looks like he feels safe.

It seems _can’t_ is no longer an option.

“Hopefully never,” he admits, attempting a light tone.

Peter’s lips press into a fine line slashing across his face. Fire blazes in his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything.

Iron tries again, twirling a screwdriver in his nimble fingers. “So, who let the cat out of the bag?” 

“Bucky.”

“Traitor,” he says with a snort.

“It’s not funny!” Peter shouts, and suddenly, he’s stalking into what Iron’s transformed into a lab, every line of him somehow stiff and explosive at the same time and so not him it’s staggering. “You’re _dying_ , and you didn’t tell me!”

“I was going to have it fixed before you ever had to worry about it,” he defends, but even he, post-brainwashing social ineptness and all, knows that’s not an excuse.

Peter keeps advancing. “That’s not your choice to make,” he growls, and Iron didn’t know he was capable of _growling_. “We’re in this together.”

“You’re just a kid,” Iron snaps, and it’s _true_ , okay? It’s always been about protecting Peter, and if that means he doesn’t know everything, that’s just part of the bigger mission. It’s the same reason he never told him anything about HYDRA before they got their hands on him, the same reason he doesn’t know that he gave up Winter, his own humanity, so that Pierce would leave Peter to heal.

He sees Peter’s reaction to that in real time, the rage that fills his widening eyes, the way his entire body _bristles_ with indignation and he stabs a finger at him. “Yeah, well, I’m the _kid_ that your psychopath bosses dissected for a few months, after, oh, that’s right, you beat the shit of me on their orders, so I think this _might_ be something I can handle.”

Peter’s hands are balled at his sides, but Iron feels like he’s been struck. His tongue is lead in his mouth, and before he can find something cutting to say in return, Peter turns on his heels and burns a path back to the door.

“Come find me when you’re going to take this seriously,” he mutters venomously, nearly too low for Iron to catch, and then he’s gone, leaving the only evidence he was ever there at all the sinkhole that’s opened up in Iron’s stomach.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

The morning following his confession to Winter, Fury tracks Iron down in the kitchen. Iron is aching for something he can’t place his finger on, and he hasn’t slept. The bags under his eyes lift with the rest of his head from where he’s been studying the texture of the counter for the past few hours when he speaks.

“Come with me,” he orders.

Iron doesn’t care for his tone, but where he’d have much more loudly told him to piss off a few days before, learning that his lifespan has been undeniably, inescapably cut short has dulled his spark considerably.

“Why?” he responds with none of his usual verve.

Fury doesn’t reply, but Iron follows him anyway. He could use the distraction, but he’s not exactly expecting the silver case Fury has taken the liberty of placing in the lab.

Iron resists the urge to sigh. “What’s in it?” he asks instead, almost certain Fury somehow knows his fate but not truly wanting to address the elephant in the room.

“The thing that’s going to save your life,” he replies.

Iron bites back the thorny response that immediately comes to mind. “There’s _nothing_ that’s going to save me from this,” he grits out. “I’m good at this. I’ve run _every_ possibility, and there’s no viable replacement for palladium. It can’t be done.”

“Would you shut _up?_ I’m _telling_ you, you haven’t tried everything, hence the highly classified information I’m making the effort to share with you.”

Iron blinks, and Fury motions to the case. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. I thought you would find a fix on your own, but Barnes showed up last night to explain that you were having problems.” 

The idea of Winter going to Fury after their conversation is somewhat odd, despite knowing that Winter does what he can to help, the idea of Fury listening to him is even more so despite that, logically, Iron understands that Fury doesn’t truly have it out for him, no matter how many of Iron’s buttons he inadvertently pushes.

“We used to have a man in our ranks—one of our founders—Howard Stark, who talked about a discovery he had that would lead to an energy race that would _dwarf_ the arms race. He said his son would be the one to solve it, but that didn’t work out so hot for either of them.”

Iron lifts a brow, uncharacteristically unsure of his place in the picture Fury’s describing for him.

Seeing the unspoken question, Fury sighs. “Howard Stark and his wife died in a car crash back in ‘91. Their son disappeared a month later, and his case was never solved, which left SHIELD with everything Howard intended to pass to him eventually. I don’t know that you’re any Stark, but Barnes and Natasha say you’re plenty smart. At any rate, this is what I have to give you. If you can solve it, great. If not—”

He trails off, but they both know what’s being left unsaid.

It’s hardly a cure-all, but Iron doesn’t need certainty—just a chance. He does, however, appreciate knowing what he’s getting into. His hands stay at his sides, and his gaze falls keenly to Fury. “And what do you want from me?” he snips.

Nothing is ever free. There is always, always a catch, and though Fury isn’t as bad as where Iron comes from, he’s cunning enough to work the situation in his favor. 

But instead of throwing down an ultimatum, Fury stares at him—hard. “You just fix yourself up, Soldier. I’d hate to lose you when you’re just getting started.”

Fury leaves without another word, and Iron is unsettled by the fact that he believes him.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2 DAYS AGO_

He’s going to kill him. Peter is going to throttle Iron himself, HYDRA be damned, because _how could he?_

Getting kidnapped and experimented on? Fine.

Having to fight the man he’s known and learned to trust over nine years nearly to the death? Sure.

Being an orphan because of the evil organization said man was brainwashed into working for? Still not okay, but it’s not Iron’s fault.

And after all of that, being rescued and seeing each other at their worst, literally _taking a fucking bullet_ for him, Iron would hide the fact that he’s _dying._

(It’s not fair—it’s not fair—it’s not _fair.)_

What if he’d actually died and Peter had never known? What if he’d been another parent, another Ben? What if he’d gone and left Peter all alone, without even a route back to May?

Peter has had far, far too much alone time the past few weeks—a little over two months, to be specific—to stew with his thoughts. They wink in and out of his head in passes of the feeling of metal at his back or the excruciating crawl to the shower to scrub the blood off his skin—how May will put his funeral together, the smell of Ben’s life spilled on the ground of a convenience store, the shape of his parents’ prone bodies.

Peter has tried very, very hard to be okay for the sake of not letting Iron know just how terrified he is when the nurses come at him with needles and smiles his mind warps into leers, and aside from the nightmares—especially the one the night he woke up—and a relatively short panic attack the first time someone tried to mess with his IV, he’s been doing okay. 

But he’s scared.

He’s scared _all the time_ , and Iron makes things a tiny bit better because if Peter could break through to him back in the base—the cesspool where HYDRA elected to pick their bond apart and use it for cannon fodder—and he has his book, nothing else can tear them apart—nothing can make Iron stop protecting him. Iron somehow makes him feel _safe_ despite the horrible things Peter knows he’s perfectly capable of, and if he’s gone—

(Peter might just implode.)

And he _didn’t tell him._

Peter doesn’t think there’s a gym at the bunker they’re hiding out in, though he also hasn’t asked, but he makes do, needing something, _anything_ , to take some of the tension mounting in his core away.

His fist crashes into a concrete wall—not as grimy as HYDRA’s, more industrial than decrepit—and the stone crumbles under the pressure.

It hardly hurts.

The line of his jaw is a live wire, taut and angry, and it aches with the force with which he grits his teeth. He doesn’t care if he’s being loud, if Fury or Bucky or anyone might get mad at him for destroying the space. If he chose to, he could tear the whole world down right now just with the knot of _furioushurtpetrified_ sitting in him. He reaches for a chunk that fell from where his hand left an impression in the wall and crushes that in his palm too. It’s like pinching brown sugar, watching the crystals separate into the bowl, but there’s nothing sweet to this, not even May to laugh with when the cookies inevitably come out burnt.

(He misses May so, so much.)

He punches again and then another time after that. It feels _good_ , taking a fraction of the hurt balled up inside of him out, and then he hears footsteps.

They’re not Iron or Bucky’s, aren’t heavy enough, and it’s a peculiar phenomenon, the stiffness that rolls up his back and into his head in a sinuous wave, cold and foreboding. When he’s with Iron, the fear isn’t so bad. He knows no one is coming for him, partially because Iron would never let them, as evidenced by his withering glares and body going taut with anticipation whenever he gets an inkling that Peter might be uncomfortable, and partially because if Iron’s there, it can’t be HYDRA.

(HYDRA would never let them be together, not unharmed, and the hissed reminders of what Iron was going through while they splayed Peter out under their cruel hands have yet to leave his head.)

But right now, he’s alone.

He draws into himself, taking his fist out of the wall to climb it.

They didn’t like it when he made catching him difficult, but when he could manage to fight through the pain to do it, he always thought the extra time to brace himself was worth whatever extra punishment they put him through as a result.

He clambers up to the corner, heart racing, inexplicably thinking of how he might be able to run—he feels better now, he’s not too hurt to try and evade their angry efforts—but when someone appears, it’s merely Natasha.

Natasha is not _merely_ anything, but considering Peter’s mind is bringing him visions of guns strapped to thighs and blood-stained lab coats, she’s a step in the right direction.

She stares at him from across the room, her eyes clear and grounded, more so than Peter’s felt since waking up with SHIELD despite rationally understanding that he’s safe. “You’re noisy,” she informs him, and her voice has no inflection to it. That, too, is an upgrade from HYDRA. His guards and doctors always tended to sound dark—never flat, never indecipherable. 

(Peter knew their intentions from the start, and he couldn’t do anything to stop them.) 

He breathes and doesn’t say anything, hands splayed on the wall in an attempt to anchor himself. He knows he has to look odd, shoved up in the corner, eyes wide and chest heaving, but she isn’t taken back. Or at least if she is, she doesn’t show it. 

Her gaze flits to the hole he’s made in the wall. “You know, Iron mentioned that you were strong, but he didn’t say you could make a crater in some concrete.”

“You call him Iron?” The words come fast, hectic. Peter’s still trying to convince himself things are fine, and it helps to focus on Natasha’s words. When he got cleared to walk around, Bucky introduced him to the others while Iron was in his lab, but he hasn’t spent that much time with them, a result of the exhaustion and pain that still comes and goes.

(He tries not to think about it, but when he’s bent double in his bed, tears pricking at the back of his eyes, he wonders if he’ll ever know the extent of what HYDRA did to him, the pain they caused him.)

But Natasha’s here now, and while she’s thus far remained carefully aloof no matter how casual she might seem, sprawled on the couch or bickering with one of the others, Peter never suspected that she might know Iron like Bucky does.

She shrugs. “Sam, Steve, and Fury call him Soldier because he hasn’t permitted them to use anything else. Bucky and I have known him for years—he’s a little more than that to us.”

Bucky, he knows. They’re both Soldiers, carry themselves the same way, have a lot of the same tics when Peter takes the time to examine them, but Natasha is different, more poised than brutal.

“How?”

The flexing of his muscles and the coil of his posture slowly relax, but he doesn’t come down from the ceiling, doesn’t put himself in reach.

Natasha doesn’t so much as blink. “We trained together before I defected to SHIELD.”

“You were with HYDRA?”

“Didn’t have much of a choice, but yes.”

Okay—okay. Peter can find a handle on that. He knows the helplessness HYDRA serves in heaping spoonfuls, the scorch of it as it was shoved down his throat. It’s feasible that Natasha would too.

He weighs the steel of her stance with the deliberate transparency of her eyes.

Yeah, Natasha knows, and with their shared experience, Peter allows himself to release the rest of the tension in his limbs, though he stays suspended above the ground.

“Sorry about the wall,” he offers.

Finally, something other than neutrality on her placid face. Her lips quirk, but it’s not the self-assured smirks of the scientists, just simple amusement. “Don’t worry about it. Not my building.”

“And Fury?”

“He has bigger problems.”

That’s fair.

A beat passes.

“What’s wrong?”

Peter can appreciate that she doesn’t try to dance around the topic, act like he’s made of glass, but he doesn’t want to talk about it, would prefer to leave the emotions swirling within him at the question well enough alone.

He crawls back down, shrugging. “I miss home.”

He’s never been a good liar, but he’s not really looking to fool her. He doesn’t think he could, anyway, not when the green of her stare cuts through him with the precision of a razor.

All he wants from Natasha is for her to treat his emotions as background noise, and she seems to be fine with allowing that.

She nods, her expression shifting to something tentatively sympathetic. “You’ll get to go back, eventually,” she assures him. “We just have to make sure it’s safe first, and—”

“Nobody knows exactly how long that’ll take. I know.”

He pointedly avoids looking at her expression when he cuts her off, busy shoving down bitterness of his own.

“Well, until then, Sam’s pretty shit at cards, but I told him I’d ask if you wanted to play.”

Peter meets her eyes, but despite her calculated control over her face, he finds nothing in its expanse that isn’t genuine.

That could be a lie of itself, but she _chose_ to be good. Peter can take a chance on someone like that, and he smiles. “I’d like that,” he admits, and as he follows Natasha back to what serves as the living room, she doesn’t bring up the fact that he tore some of the building apart because he was a little upset.

(When Iron comes to check on him that night, he still pretends to be asleep.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The girls are FIGHTING!!! Nah but really I swear I won’t do any long term damage to the irondad relationship. The boys both have Issues tho, and they have to blow up a little to remember how the other realistically functions after everything that’s happened.
> 
> As an extension of that—  
> Tony: I am horrible. Despicable. A disgusting excuse of a human being and you should hate me forever.  
> Peter: Literally shut UP bro I will hug you right now don’t test me.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading—see you guys next Sunday!!


	13. Chapter 13

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_ **  
**

Iron does not particularly _want_ to use the information Fury has provided him. That would entail admitting defeat, and Iron is not good at that for a number of reasons, beginning with the trepidation that undulates uncomfortably in his stomach at the thought, the fear that needing help or different materials than what he is initially given will mean punishment—his head in a tub of water, usually, and HYDRA didn’t care that the liquid dripped from his hair to the battery and made him convulse when they didn’t bother drying him.

So the case is something of a sore spot, but he’s going to die unless he can figure out if Howard Stark was an inventor worth his salt. 

He hasn’t told Peter the severity of the situation—not yet. However, he’s promised himself that when Peter shows up in his lab, as he suspects will thankfully happen again now that they’ve figured things out, he’ll tell him point-blank and avoid another blowout.

(He hasn’t allowed himself to think about the look that will come over his face, the light that might leave his eyes, the gape of his mouth, and no— _no_. He’s not doing this right now.)

It’s not that Iron doesn’t understand that other people can have ideas with merit, but he doesn’t like to collaborate, mainly because HYDRA’s scientists are fucking insane and also looked at him like they were considering the best way to eat him. The fact remains, however, that he’s out of options, and so, shoving down his survival instincts for once—he didn’t _ask_ for anything more, really, and this lab partner has been dead for over two decades—he opens the case and finds some old tapes just under a dusty notebook.

Well, what the hell—it’s a start.

Iron picks the tapes up, but he’s not expecting them to feel quite so cool against his palms.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 1 DAY AGO_

“Peter?”

There’s no response, but Iron can hear his breathing. It doesn’t even have the lull to it that appears when he’s sleeping, so he knows he’s not having a midday nap.

Peter’s just avoiding him.

He let it slide the night before, recognizing the need he might have to cool off, but he’s down to one last simulation to run before—

Well. 

Before he’ll know if escaping at all is the best he’s going to get.

He should have tried harder the day before, shouldn’t have let the secret fester for so long in the first place, but Iron is selfish and can’t find how things turn out without fixing this with Peter. It wouldn’t be right, not when Peter is the only one who’s ever gotten something more than pain out of the reactor’s glow. 

(Iron’s light might herald tragedy in the kid’s life, but nobody else reaches for it as a form of comfort.)  
  


The urge is too complicated to fully make sense of, but regardless, Iron has it and can’t move on without making this part of his world settle right.

He shifts on his feet. “I know you’re awake,” he calls. “And I would prefer not to break Fury’s door. I grind on his nerves in the first place, and—don’t tell him I said this—sometimes I try not to make his life difficult, but I’ll do it if I have to.”

Iron hears Peter’s breath hitch, and it’s only through years of practice that he hides a flinch, even with no one around to see it.

His hands tap against his thigh from their place shoved into his pockets, which is a motion he hasn’t been able to make in longer than he can recall. “I had to get past the Widow to get here, you know.”

That much is true. She confronted him when he came into the kitchen asking if anyone had seen Peter, and he doesn’t know what the kid did to make her like him, but it doesn’t surprise him, not really. Winter, even as solemn and as much of a pain in the ass as he can be, keeps an eye on him too. Maybe it’s an ex-HYDRA thing, he muses, but then, mercifully, he earns a response.

“Her name’s Natasha.” A beat. “And it’s unlocked. Don’t piss Fury off.”

Iron could make a lot of jokes about that, but he remembers Peter’s whip-fast anger at his humor before and thinks better of it, not wanting to snap the olive branch carefully extended to him. He opens the door and finds Peter sitting with his legs crossed on his bed and what looks like an old book on his lap. They moved him from the makeshift med bay to an actual room days ago, but it’s still strange to not have to scale an apartment building to see him, Iron won’t lie.

This time, however, Peter doesn’t wave, doesn’t say anything else. He just stares, and okay, maybe Iron deserves that one.

“Hey,” he greets him more softly than is characteristic of him.

He’s skilled at blending in or conversating for the sake of a mission, but apologies? Not so much.

Peter looks wary, for lack of a better word, and Iron knows instinctively that he’s not going to get anything else out of him unless he says something of substance, so he forces himself to take the plunge.

He clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he tells him, deliberately making the words loud, clear, but they don’t make him feel nearly as vulnerable as he anticipated. “I should’ve told you sooner. As soon as I got the chance, probably. When you said you’d been through worse, you were right, and I should’ve trusted you with this.”

There’s more he wants to say, things that HYDRA would’ve called excuses— _he didn’t want him to worry, to have more on his plate, he wanted him to focus on healing_ —but HYDRA didn’t like those. Iron knows Peter wouldn’t hurt him, even if he did get angry again, but it’s a precaution he can’t wipe out of his peripheral.

Iron studies the unyielding set of his mouth, the unfamiliar hardness to his eyes.

(Iron forgets, sometimes, that Peter has seen his fair share of horrors and has come out stronger for them, so focused on shielding him from anything that might hurt.)

“Thanks,” he bites out in return, and Iron smothers a lick of amusement at the observation that Peter sounds just as awkward as him. He doesn’t know if it’s okay to joke yet, though the atmosphere is stifling, far too grim for a world where he has the pleasure of going where he pleases without a gun trained on his back, where he can speak whenever he wants.

Peter looks down. “You can’t do that, okay?” he murmurs. “I’ve had a lot of people leave, and I never got the chance to say goodbye to any of them. I can’t have that happen with you, too.” He glances back up, a smile tugging hesitantly at his lips. “It’d be weird. Like, the fact that your name is Iron levels of weird.”

Iron doubts Peter spoke because he could sense what he needed, but he appreciates the quip regardless and smiles back, thinking of when things were simpler. “It won’t,” he swears to him. “I’ll do better,” he adds, which is the more daunting of his two promises.

He hardly knows how to _be_ without HYDRA’s twisted structure, never mind how to _improve_ himself for Peter, but he’ll figure it out for him.

Peter has always been more tactile than Iron ever finds himself expecting, but when he gets up from the bed and moves in, Iron doesn’t question the shape of him in his arms.

(There’s no need to question what he knows is right.)

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Iron’s nose wrinkles, close to the makeshift projector he has set up. He doesn’t have a screen, technically, but SHIELD is no more creative than HYDRA in terms of interior design. The blank wall of his lab will serve his purposes fine, and he plays the cassette he found in the case.

From the moment the man appears on the screen, Iron feels _bad._

He doesn’t know any other term to describe the chasm that suddenly opens up under his ribs, as daunting as it is electrifying. It’s almost like seeing the picture of Peggy, but despite the wash of familiarity the man’s face brings, there’s none of the comfort, the burning desire to see him in person, even though Fury already told Iron of his death.

If anything, the feeling isn’t unlike the dread he experiences at the sight of a handler. Not quite as strong, as icy, but there, unpleasant and acrid.

 _“I’m Howard Stark,”_ the man introduces himself, and as he explains what else he’s doing, Iron’s attention snags on his last name— _Stark._

It sounds different when the man says it, carries more weight than Fury’s measured tone.

(It’s almost comprehensible, but there’s a piece out of place, something that just doesn’t fit.)

Howard’s mid-speech when a boy comes into frame, a head of dark hair and curious fingers. _“Tony, what are you doing back there?”_ he barks, and oh— _oh._ Iron tenses, the response automatic, a subconscious fear that rears its ugly head.

 _No._ Peggy called him Tony, but this can’t be—it _can’t—no._

_“Put it back where you got it from!”_

Between Peter and the arc reactor, he hasn’t had time to dwell on it, but if both Howard and Peggy were founders of SHIELD, it makes sense that she’d know his kid—and the child on the screen is Stark’s. Iron knows it in his bones, but he can’t say why. 

_“Go—go, go, go!”_

(He can’t speak it into existence, but he _knows_ why— _heknowswhyheknowswhyhe_ —)

He was never wanted—never cared for, a means to an end even in his infancy, it appears.

_“So from all of us at Stark Industries—”_

Stark? No, the _Star_ —that’s him, that’s _all_ he is, and he can’t stand it, he _hates_ it— 

_“Tony, you’re too young to understand this right now—but one day you’ll figure this out.”_

The Soldier—Iron—Tony—the _Iron_ Soldier—the Star— _Stark—Tony Stark._

_“What is, and always will be, my greatest creation is you.”_

He has been an invention from beginning to end, Iron realizes, and the world comes crashing in.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 1 DAY AGO_

Iron goes back to his lab, and he discovers that there is no hope.

He told Peter he would be better, but he can’t physically bring himself to move out of the room until late that night, when he’s already gone to sleep.

He hopes Peter can forgive him for that. HYDRA wouldn’t, but Peter isn’t HYDRA—is the farthest thing from it.

Iron tells himself that, at the very least, Peter will get his goodbye.

(It doesn’t make it any easier.)

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Iron sits. That’s a safe motion—solid. Something that can’t turn on him.

He shut the video off, unable to stand the sight of the man— _Howard_ —for a second longer. Iron knows there’s a message in his words, something worth excavating that could help him, but overpowering that is the terrible, soul-crushing grip his words leave on his heart.

Peggy called him Tony, and so did the man, but that means the man is— _was_ his father.

Iron has wondered more than once if he was anyone before HYDRA, but this isn’t the answer he wanted. In his most aimless thoughts, he imagined a simple house, no siblings, but parents, maybe a pet.

He should’ve known he would never get something so easy, and when the feeling of his palms on the floor has soothed him enough, he stands, going to the computer.

Iron has never been able to stifle the nearly primal urge to _know_ , to feel out the exact dynamics of his surroundings so nobody can pull the rug out from under him like what just happened.

His normally sure fingers pause, arched and unsettled above the keys, and then they fly, typing in the man’s name in a torrent of the blind desire to find _control._

(He could type in his own, but the floor hasn’t placated him that much.)

The internet provides him with a basic biography—Wikipedia.

He hesitates to click on it, breaths coming harshly, but he has to understand what he came from, why HYDRA bothered to take and destroy him. So he reads, and he learns.

From Captain America to the nuclear bomb, Howard was a busy man, but one of Iron’s bigger takeaways is that Howard Stark was very, _very_ good at killing. It doesn’t look like he got his hands dirty, no, but Iron reads about the horrors he breathed to life, thinks of his handler’s orders and the ebb and flow of machinery under his own hands when HYDRA wanted something new to play with, and grimly acknowledges the shared trait.

He also had a business partner, but the wave of what Iron can only describe as _wrath_ at the name _Obadiah Stane_ derails him from his more pressing search. He lifts his hands from the keyboard when he notices one of the letters starting to splinter under his touch and takes a few deep breaths.

He’ll be back for more on that later, but he can’t lose it, not yet. He has too much to uncover still, and if he gives himself over to the rage threatening to bury him alive, he won’t be able to dig himself out to do it.

He forces himself to scroll past it, going to the section labeled _personal life,_ and there lies the link to an article about Howard’s prodigy, the late Tony Stark.

(They never say anything about Howard’s methods of discipline, but those come back to Iron more sharply than anything else.)

He was a wild child, a genius, and a criminal if his array of charges for being a minor in possession (of both drugs and alcohol, note) are to be taken into account. The idea of underage drinking, of all things, being the worst of his deeds might be laughable if remembering that he doesn’t know how many people he’s killed didn’t make him nauseous, so he keeps reading. Tony Stark disappeared at the age of seventeen, it appears, and according to the article, this was seen as something of a tragedy, the loss of someone destined for greatness.

Iron looks at the flushed cheeks and devil-may-care grin on the boy they show in pictures and wonders if he knew how fucking lucky he was to be free to ruin his own life.

(The boy didn’t, but he learned, learned to scream, learned what pain truly was, learned that he should’ve been grateful.)

Iron has to pull his hands away again so that they can ball into fists without fear of breaking the computer. He breathes in, breathes out, trembling with indignance at the boy’s stupidity.

He doesn’t feel sympathy for him, doesn’t care that he was stolen—no, not stolen, _sold_ , he remembers distantly—weeks after the death of his parents. People die all the time. He should’ve been smarter, should’ve had more walls up, should’ve kept himself from becoming this mangled _thing_ , but he didn’t, and Iron is what the boy has to show for it.

Iron shoved down his fury at the mention of Stane, but this is different, more visceral. This is the self-hatred that has snarled at his heels for as long as he can remember, and he swipes everything he can reach off a nearby table with a shout that echoes and permeates the otherwise silent lab.

He knows that’s not the end of the story, but if he touches the computer, he’s going to shatter it. He’s forced to pant for he doesn’t know how long in the wake of his horrible inquiry, and he’s so worked up, he doesn’t hear footsteps until it’s too late and they’ve stumbled into the mess Iron’s wading through.

Iron doesn’t jolt when Peter opens his mouth, but it’s a close thing.

“Iron? Are you okay?”

He stares at the mess of papers and tools on the floor, finding them much easier to process than the concern doubtlessly present on Peter’s face.

He really does hate worrying him. He’s the adult, and he’s already caused him so much pain; he shouldn’t be shoving more onto him, but here they are.

He unballs his hands and then clenches them back up. How does he even begin to unpack everything he’s just discovered? He’s still turning the question over in his mind, wondering how he can possibly respond, when Peter’s eyes—and Iron forgets how strong they are, how strong all of Peter is now—dart to the page he didn’t bother closing out of.

“What are you doing learning about Tony Stark?”

Iron’s breath hitches, and the words come fast, more a stream of consciousness than real sentences. “Not Stark—the Star. It’s a joke—a taunt,” he mutters, having figured out that much from Howard’s video alone. He already knew HYDRA’s not above teasing, but it stills leaves a sour taste in his mouth to understand how much knowledge— _power_ —they held over his head.

He still doesn’t look at Peter, but he can visualize the furrow he suspects has formed between his brows, the way his eyes might dart from side to side, scanning for clues to help him solve the mystery.

“Iron,” he repeats, softer, slower, like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. “Why are you looking at Tony Stark?”

He couldn’t stop himself from coming out with it if he tried, the need to let somebody else bear a fraction of the ferocious realization in the pit of his stomach. “He’s me,” he whispers. “He’s who I was before HYDRA. Tony Stark, son of Howard and Maria Stark. Heir to Stark Industries before he vanished when he was still a teenager, leaving the company to Obadiah Stane.”

He rattles off the facts of Tony’s life—of _his_ life—with no small amount of venom, bruises and grease-stained t-shirts shimmering in his mind’s eye, the shadow of a better life.

Peter seems to blank, and at his silence, Iron finally, painstakingly lifts his head, needing to see that he’s not insane, that someone else is reconciling the two fractions of the life HYDRA annihilated when they snatched him up. 

Iron finds Peter staring at the computer, at the picture on the screen, shaking his head ever so slightly. “No—you can’t be—” he tries, but the words die on his tongue as he snaps his gaze from Iron to Tony and back again. 

(Peter can find nothing of the spoiled little prince in Iron’s fractured soul, the very way Iron sits a sharp contrast to his former self, but when he looks— _really_ looks—past the differences inlaid in the set of their bodies, he can’t deny that the faces are the same, Iron’s merely more chiseled by pain and too few years for how long he’s been missing.)

“Oh,” Peter whispers.

Sometimes, Iron hates being right, and hiding around the corner, having followed Peter when he heard the crash to make sure Iron wouldn’t lash out, Winter presses a hand over his mouth.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Iron is quiet. Too quiet. It freaks Peter out if he’s being honest.

(He thinks of a kitchen, a fighting ring, a hallway.) 

When Iron is silent, something is _wrong_ , and Peter suspects there’s more to the discovery of his past self than what he’s said so far. For now, he’s just sitting with him, pretending it’s completely normal that there’s shit _everywhere_ from when Iron presumably knocked it off the table and that Iron is staring at the ground with uncanny concentration.

It’s a little unnerving, to say the least, and not just because he’s been doing that for the last ten minutes—basically, as long as Peter’s been with him. Iron gets upset, sure. Even he has his vulnerabilities, no matter how hard he tries to hide them, but the version of him he’s seeing right now is something new, the difference between an uncracked egg and the jagged shell and barely-there pool of liquid left after dumping most of it into the bowl.

He wishes he knew what to do to make it better, but the most he’s sure of is that a kind touch goes a long way with Iron. He leans himself on his shoulder, one arm raising to wrap around him, and Iron doesn’t flinch before accepting the motion.

Peter explicitly understands the power Iron holds in his body, but it’s at times like these that he realizes he purposely builds himself up to look bigger than he is. He’s visibly strong, true, with the muscle packed onto his frame, but he’s not a beast in the way that Bucky or Captain America—Steve, as Peter somehow calls him now—are. His shoulders aren’t nearly as wide; he’s not as tall. Even his face is softer than theirs, not quite aged to the same maturity at first glance.

It strikes Peter suddenly that, in a line-up of the three of them, Iron would be, objectively speaking, the runt.

(He’d bet money on his speculation that HYDRA would’ve noticed too, and he cringes to think of how they would’ve ensured Iron was useful regardless.)

Peter’s expression twists soundlessly with the revelation. If Iron isn’t going to be talking, then he’ll have to take over for him because he doesn’t think he wants to have any other nasty realizations for the moment.

“You know, if you are Tony Stark, you have, like, a Fortune 500 waiting for you.”

Clearly, the old identity is a touchy subject, but Peter knows Iron and, more relevantly, has the reason for their spat fresh in his mind. If he doesn’t push him a little, he’ll be happy to ignore the larger issue, and besides that, Peter wants to know more too. Discussing something more material seems like a relatively stable stepping off point.

“Stark Industries is _huge_ , and I know, legally, it’s supposed to be passed down through the Stark bloodline. Stane left that clause or whatever alone for sentiment.” He pauses. “Or at least because it was good for his public image.”

Peter may not have known Iron was so directly connected to Stark Industries, but he’s been fascinated with the company since he understood exactly what an arc reactor is. Furthermore, when he takes interest in something, he takes _interest_. He could probably write a book on Stark Industries based on memory alone, and his knowledge encompasses the tens of studies he’s watched and read over Tony’s disappearance.

“You could make something good. You used to build stuff for them, right?” he asks, carefully avoiding addressing HYDRA by name.

It takes a second, but Iron’s head dips in a nod. “Search it, please. Stark Industries.”

Peter’s more than a little startled by him speaking, but he hums in acknowledgment. “Okay,” he agrees, standing, though he remains unsure how he feels about leaving Iron on the ground. He walks to the computer, typing into the search bar and hitting enter. He expects Iron to get up after a moment, but he stays sitting.

Peter wishes he could say this is the side of Iron he dislikes most, and he clears his throat, trying not to make his concern obvious. “It’s up if you—uh—want to take a look,” he prompts, and at last, Iron rises, his joints audibly cracking in a sound that’s almost too normal to fit with Iron’s deft, ultra-smooth movements.

(Peter sometimes forgets that there really is a person, misshapen and abused, but a person nonetheless, beneath Iron’s hard exterior.)

He watches Iron get up, watches him fix his gaze on the computer screen, watches it shift to the right, where there’s a picture of the Stark Industries logo—the iconic backward check.

Something in the air shifts, the static before lightning knifes devastatingly down from the sky.

Peter watches the purest form of _fury_ he has ever seen crash into Iron like a freight train, and his fist slams into the computer screen.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

When Iron shattered the computer screen, Bucky stepped out from his place around the bend and sent Peter to go get a first aid kit—or at least to find Sam, who will know where one is.

It’s both necessary and an excuse to talk to Iron without the kid in earshot, and the blood drips from his knuckles, beating time on the floor of the lab Iron’s somehow brought to life in a mere week.

His chest is _heaving_ , and Bucky knows the look in his eyes. When it was the two of them—the six, technically, but fuck those guys—it appeared after a particularly brutal beating or an intense wipe. It’s the blind, savage desire to _destroy_ , and Bucky finds himself feeling grateful that he has a better outlet for it now than pummeling him into the ground.

Fury might be pissed about the computer, which was pretty nice, all things considered, but they can handle that. Bucky knows what it’s like to be overwhelmed with the knowledge of who you used to be, and Fury’s lucky that’s the only thing Iron’s broke.

He treads toward him carefully, mindful of the feral cast over his features, and reminds himself that it’s meant for HYDRA, not him. There are no orders here, and that means he can help him.

“Iron,” he begins lowly. “What’s going on? You’re going to freak Peter out.”

 _Going to_ is a bit inaccurate at this point—Bucky isn’t an idiot and saw how shaky Peter was as he ran to get the kit—but there’s no need to rub salt in the wound.

Iron’s mouth screws up, yet another motion to express the anger radiating from him in waves so strong they’re nearly suffocating, and Bucky can barely understand the words he grits out for the sheer vitriol shoved in them.

“It was all a fucking _joke_ to them,” Iron hisses, and yeah, okay, Bucky’s lost.

He blinks. “I’m gonna’ need you to explain that one,” he admits measuredly, and Iron flares up like a pissed cat.

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Winter, you know what I’m talking abo—”

“No, I don’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be asking. Now, quit being an ass and _tell me,”_ Bucky snaps, resisting the urge to smack him.

Patience has never been a strong suit of his, but Bucky does want to try and fix what’s so clearly gone wrong. Iron meets his annoyed stare with molten rage, his eyes dark and lashing out at the world in their mere existence, and he lifts his shirt to expose the vest he used to wear for HYDRA.

It’s not surprising that the layer is there, given that Iron would likely rather cut off a limb than make his biggest weakness public knowledge, but that doesn’t mean Bucky understands what he’s doing as he forces a hand under its dark canvas to filch out a thin, yellow tome Peter nearly died wrestling for.

He pitches it to Bucky in a near lethal throw, and holy _shit,_ something’s up.

Iron would never, _never_ expose himself so critically, probably hasn’t let the journal out of his sight since he got his hands on it. He might as well be offering his heart up on a platter, and he flings the book at Bucky like it’s scalding him.

He catches it out of the air with his metal arm to find exactly what has Iron so worked up, and at first, he doesn’t understand, not until he glances to the spiderwebbed cracks and various colored lines marring the computer screen and manages to decipher the search that made Iron snap.

To be perfectly honest, Bucky isn’t sure that he’d have stopped at the computer if he was in Iron’s shoes, and while he’s not religious, he sends a thankful prayer to whoever might be listening that Iron tries to reign himself in around Peter.

HYDRA dared to put a red flag to Iron’s past on one of the only things that can force him to heel, and Bucky can taste the slap that must’ve felt like to discover.

Iron is quivering— _bristling_ —with rage, his hands balled into tight fists. “I’m a Stark, and they called me the _Star._ One letter—one _fucking_ letter away from the truth, and then they put _that_ on my triggers?”

It’s not just rubbing Iron’s helplessness in his face. It’s _mashing_ it in there, smearing it into every crevice until no amount of washing could wipe it away.

Bucky understands, and yeah, saying Fury got lucky is an understatement.

“They were taunting you from day one,” he murmurs, stomach twisting. He knows the things HYDRA does in theory, but he always manages to be surprised by their creativity.

Iron’s chin dips in a stiff nod, and from his hurt hand— _drip, drip, drip._

The promise rolls off his tongue without thought or regret. “They’ll pay. For both of us.”

The possibility of blood is exactly what Iron needs to snap out of his fit, but the chilling, malevolent grin that slowly curls his lips is even more dangerous. “Pierce first,” he purrs.

“Pierce first,” Bucky agrees and can’t stop the satisfaction he feels from coming to occupy a ruthless section of his still-recovering mind either.

When Peter comes back with bandages and Sam, Iron is calm, and Bucky is invited to help him late that night as he burns his book page by page, admiring the color of the flames as it turns his puppet strings to ash.

In the wake of Iron’s freak out, Bucky nearly forgets that he’s dying, but as the two of them watch the fire, he shakes his head. “Howard had an idea. I just need to figure it out,” he admits. “I’m not ready to go—not before they do.”

The admission doesn’t so much as make Bucky pause, and three days spent almost entirely in the lab later, save for trips to get food and make Fury order more supplies, Iron emerges with his light having changed shape ever so slightly.

When the two of them and Peter sit at the kitchen counter at some ungodly hour of the morning and Peter asks if Iron can feel the difference, Iron just shrugs and smiles, a much happier thing than the sadistic curve Bucky witnessed come to life in the lab a few days ago. “It tastes like coconut,” he answers simply, and Bucky is proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot tell you what an Experience this chapter was to write. However, now that it’s out of the way and Tony has 1) fixed his shit and 2) a better grasp on who he is, I’ll give him a (relative) break for a little. He and Peter have some serious trauma to work through, to say the least, lmao.
> 
> That being said, hello to all the new readers I know have shown up in the past couple of weeks!! You guys are sending this fic’s hit count up by a few hundred every week, and that’s insane—thank you for taking a chance on this fic! If you have the time and energy, I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether it be quoting any lines you liked from the chapter back at me (always a fun thing to read!!) or you keysmashing in the comment box. I also try really hard to reply to all the comments I get on this fic, so if you have any questions, there’s a good place to drop them. Alternatively, my inbox on tumblr (linked below in the general notes for the fic!) is always open to discuss ct or anything else that crosses your mind. As always, thank you guys above all for reading, and I’ll see you next week!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: description of a panic attack

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_  


After fixing the reactor, things don’t get easier, exactly, but Iron feels less like he’s flailing for purchase. His chest feels better, which is nice, and while he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself without a mission pushing him forward, he’s strangely okay with that. 

He never realized before that _not doing_ anything was an option, which is an oversimplification, but still.

Meeting with Fury to expose any information he remembers about HYDRA and building whatever he feels like doesn’t begin to match up the gritty routine and never-ending series of assignments HYDRA set out for him. It makes him anxious, and he doesn’t realize why until he opens up the freezer and the resulting waft of cold air makes him flinch back and into a fighting stance.

(When things slowed around a HYDRA base, he was thrown into cryo until they picked back up.)

Peter is off with the Widow and Sam—an interesting combination, but he has reluctantly decided to trust them a _little_ farther than he can throw them—but Winter is sitting at the counter. He sets down his slice of toast, swallowing the bite he has in his mouth.

“Iron?” he asks carefully.

It’s a better name than Soldier, one he’s given everyone permission to use, at last, as Iron hasn’t quite made his origins common knowledge. At the very least, it’s something HYDRA would never have called him—the Star, the Soldier, the Iron Soldier, but never just Iron, which is why it fits best—and that’s probably the only reason Winter’s voice, something Iron’s still working on extricating from some of the worst memories of his life, doesn’t set him off further.

He sucks in a breath, putting his back to the wall instinctively so that he’ll be able to see any attack that comes his way. It always used to be like this. Unless his handlers had been warned to use the words, he fought. It didn’t matter how tired, how hurt he was; he never forgot the feeling of being made of ice, and more intensely, he never forgot the fear that struck him every time he came to gasping for breath: that the reactor had shut down entirely in the cold and he was going to choke in its absence.

Iron’s eyes snap to Winter regardless, breaking him down. He checks for weapons, for any sign of hostility, remembering the waves of guards that had to keep him occupied so someone could sneak in and sedate him, remembering writhing as they slipped the equipment over his head.

The freezer door is still ajar in Iron’s periphery, and for a moment, he thinks it’s another person that is much, much closer than Winter and fumbles for a weapon, coming up with the kitchen scissors in a nearby drawer. Then, he realizes the door for what it is _and_ that he’s taken his eyes off Winter, which is _always_ a mistake, _fuck_ , and—

“Iron.”

The word is deliberately calm, meant to placate him but without the sinister undertones of a doctor or one of his superiors. He still keeps the scissors in hand, and if he could hold them more tightly without breaking them, his knuckles would be shining white.

Winter hasn’t moved, and Iron’s jaw hurts he’s clenching it so tightly.

“Iron, I need you to tell me what’s wrong so I can help.”

 _Tell him?_ But Iron can’t talk, isn’t allowed to, can feel the press of the muzz—

Wait. No, he can’t. There isn’t anything on his mouth, not anymore.

He can’t bring himself to speak, but his lips part to take a deeper breath. He jerks his thumb towards the freezer door instead, hoping Winter will be able to put it together.

Winter moves slowly off the stool, unfolding himself so that he can stand, and the care behind his actions is reassuring because it means he hasn’t been told to attack. Winter under orders is brute force and breathtaking speed, and Iron sees nothing of that in his cautious, incremental movements.

“That being open?” he asks, tipping his head at the freezer.

Not exactly, but Iron nods, and ever so gently, Winter inches forward to nudge it shut.

Having jerked away, Iron couldn’t actually feel the cold anyway, but he can imagine, the frost lining his throat, drowning him when it melted, his tongue a glacier sitting behind his teeth.

Iron at least has the presence of mind to be grateful that Peter’s not around to see this little _episode_. Of the two of them, he makes a considerable effort to be the steadier one, someone Peter can trust to catch him instead of having to keep an eye out for any freakouts. He’s not pleased he lost control and made enough noise to warrant Peter checking on him the day he saw Howard’s tapes, and being vulnerable around Winter is a better alternative by far.

Still, he expects to be asked what exactly set him off, which is fine. Winter will get it, even if he might think him pathetic. It’s fine—it’s fine—it’s _fine_ —it’s—

Winter walks back to his stool. Sits. Picks up his toast again, which is probably cold by now, and takes a bite.

Iron blinks and realizes the hand gripping the scissors has fallen limply at his side.

Winter doesn’t even look at him when he speaks. “Ask me or someone else when you want something out of there next time,” he suggests.

It takes an active effort for Iron to school his features to not betray his bewilderment. The idea of asking for help is so foreign it might as well be in another language, but it makes sense, an easy way to avoid panicking in the future.

Iron frowns. “Next time,” he echoes, though whether he’s agreeing or simply thinking about the incident repeating itself is unclear. His voice comes out raspy, like how Peter used to hear it when he took off his mask to see him.

 _Ask,_ Winter said, like it was nothing.

Iron puts the scissors back in the drawer and shuts it a little too hard, but he thinks it might be something worth considering.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Peter is braiding Natasha’s hair. It would be weird out of context or if someone told him what he would be doing a few months ago, but the silky texture under his fingers is nice, softer than most other things on his skin that’s been extra sensitive ever since the bite, and more importantly, the steady over-under pattern feels a lot like control, which he’s been distinctly lacking since that first day he woke up in his holding cell. Plus, it helps to distract from the pain of his spine, which flares up at varying degrees of intensity based on nothing more than how the wind blows.

If Natasha finds anything disturbing about having someone who can punch through concrete with their hands a few inches from her neck, she doesn’t show it.

Her hair isn’t all that long, but considering she doesn’t mind when he does the same piece over and over again, it doesn’t matter. The orange-red of it is soothing, different than the splatters he can see flashes of on steel if he tries to remember it or the shade of blood caked onto his chest when they threw him back into his cell. It’s fiery but somehow simultaneously cool, and while the task is new enough to where he has to focus, it isn’t hard.

He’s not sure Natasha understands his appreciation for the color, but he suspects she guesses that he could use a distraction.

Across the room, lounging on the other half of the dingy set of couches SHIELD apparently keeps around with an old TIME magazine, Sam perks up when his phone buzzes. He stares at the screen, and then he sighs. “Bucky junior incoming,” he announces.

Natasha hums, and Peter’s shoulders ease a little, even as he snorts at the nickname.

“It’s not his fault he’s little,” she quips back, eyes closed as Peter keeps weaving. It’s strange, hearing people talk about Iron casually, but it’s far better than the dark mutterings he caught between doses of anesthesia.

“He’s not _that_ short,” Peter attempts to defend him.

“He’s tiny and you’re tinier,” Natasha replies, ignoring his objection.

Sam nods in agreement. “With that face? He looks like he stumbled out of a frat, even if he came up any higher than my chin.” Peter feels bad for him, really, but Sam’s jokes are stupidly accurate. He tries to think of how to defend himself, but Sam isn’t done, squinting at his phone. “He might be touchy. Bucky’s words, not mine.”

“Interesting,” Natasha hums, and Peter sighs, lips twisting a bit to the side as he nears the end of the strand he’s holding and the pieces get harder to manipulate. She tips her head back a little to study him at the sound. “Are you two fighting again?” she asks, and though her tone is teasing, Peter can see the undercurrent of genuine concern that belies it.

He shakes his head. “No, we’re fine,” he says, which is true, even if his spine gives an unusually sharp throb he doesn’t let show. “I just wish he’d loosen up a little,” he admits lowly, keeping an ear out for footsteps. From what Peter can tell, his own senses are slightly more heightened than any of the super soldiers, but Iron’s range of hearing is nothing to sniff at. “I know he’s dealing with a lot, but I think he would feel better if he tried talking to someone other than Bucky and I.”

Natasha’s head falls back to where it was before, and she hums again. Peter isn’t sure exactly when it came together for him, but over the past few days, he’s discovered that Natasha not speaking means she’s thinking, and that means something is going to happen. It might be good; it might be bad, but she is not a woman of inaction.

Peter’s sense for danger doesn’t go off, exactly, but it swirls sluggishly around the small of his back, a nearly muted warning.

He wants to say something like _“please don’t piss him off on purpose”_ or _“let him do it on his own”_ , but then he hears Iron approaching and realizes his window of opportunity is gone. She’s not even facing the right way for Peter to give her a pleading look, and before long Iron has appeared in the common room they’ve set up away from the kitchen—“so Fury can’t find us doing nothing as easily,” Bucky admitted to Peter during one of the days Iron was in the lab.

His face is blank, or at least it would be if Peter didn’t know how to read him. When he stops walking, he tucks his hands into his pockets, and he looks at Peter. Specifically, he eyes where he has Natasha’s hair in hand, and he raises a brow but doesn’t ask, choosing instead to take a seat a few inches from the two of them on the couch.

The room is silent and more than a little awkward, but Peter has never really gone for that, especially not when Iron’s around. “How’s Bucky?” he asks, though he saw him an hour ago at most.

Iron shrugs. “Eating cold toast.”

And then, surprising Peter—Iron too, if the quick jolt of his fingers in his pockets means anything—Sam chimes in, shaking his head in disgust. “It’s like I’ve been telling you guys—he’s a psychopath. This is just the latest piece of evidence.”

Peter still can’t see Natasha’s face, but her tone is chiding. “It’s not nice to mock the elderly,” she replies dryly, and—even more unexpectedly than Sam responding to Iron, who Peter has overheard calling him _creepy_ and _kind of an asshole_ when he thought he was out of earshot—Iron barks a stilting laugh.

It’s not the best Peter’s heard, and it doesn’t line up with the warning Bucky texted Sam, which probably means Iron’s hiding something that just happened in the kitchen, but it’s more emotional than anything he’s shown around anyone who’s not him or Bucky yet.

Peter decides to count it as a step in the right direction.

Sam pauses for a moment, clearly taken off guard, but then he grins, big and toothy. “He and Steve can always be taken down a peg,” he shoots back. “Do you think being a giant pain in the ass is a Brooklyn thing?”

Iron doesn’t miss a beat. “I’d just say it goes for anyone living in NYC.”

Alright, first of all, something is _definitely_ up that Iron doesn’t want Peter asking about, hence how he’s trying to distract him, but also, what a _jerk._

Peter lets go of Natasha’s braid, mouth falling open in indignance. “First of all,” he begins, utterly outraged, “Queens and Brooklyn aren’t even _comparable_ , so saying it’s because of the whole city just doesn’t work.”

“But you don’t deny something is going on with you being a pain?” Iron hums.

“I hadn’t _gotten to that_ yet!”

“Sounds like an excuse to me,” Sam cuts in, and Peter splutters.

 _“What?_ No—no, no, no. Bucky—Bucky’s favorite fruit is _plums_ , okay? That’s some weird old man-Brooklyn combo stuff. You can’t go around grouping me with someone like that.”

Sam frowns, which, _good_ —he doesn’t endorse _traitors_ , and furthermore, the next time Iron wants to keep his attention elsewhere, he’d appreciate if he could just strike up a normal conversation. This is cruel and unusual punishment. “Plums are good,” he defends, and that is an opening if Peter’s ever heard one.

“Like I said,” he starts, grinning with anticipation for his delivery, “that’s some weird old man stuff.”

Sam cocks his head, blinking in a mixture of disbelief and offense. “Did you just say—”

“You heard me.”

Natasha has a hand pressed over her mouth in what Peter suspects is an attempt to hide a smile, and Iron allows another laugh that’s just a bit too harsh to feel real to slip out.

Sam sits up, brows raising. “Oh, so it’s like that?” he says incredulously, and caught up in the fun of bantering and the relief of Iron making an effort, Peter forgets Natasha’s silence earlier.

“Why don’t you two duke it out?” she suggests, and Peter watches the tension as it rolls through Iron’s body.

He wishes he did tell her to leave things alone, even if Iron would’ve heard.

“Peter’s not fighting anybody,” he rebuffs the idea stiffly, his eyes suddenly narrowed and staring unflinchingly at Natasha from where she’s turned to face him.

Peter feels like bringing up that he was a vigilante for half a year before HYDRA came into the picture might not be the best move right now, to put it lightly. Instead, he slowly shrinks back into the couch, very uncomfortable with being in the middle of the two of them. From his seat, Sam doesn’t look any more at ease.

It feels like there’s a countdown that just started for a bomb, but Peter has no idea when it’s going to detonate.

He blows out a breath, trying to soothe the situation. “Uh, maybe another ti—”

“The kid’s strong. Let him blow off a little steam,” she cuts him thoughtlessly off in response to the steel in Iron’s voice. Scratch that, actually. Natasha never does anything without thinking, so she’s deliberately goading Iron along.

He is Switzerland, and on either side of him is Germany and the U.S. 

Holy fuck.

“He’s injured,” Iron snaps. “If he wants to exercise, he can run a few laps, not go toe to toe with a trained soldier.”

“Super healing,” she bites readily back, and if Peter weren’t too terrified of setting off some kind of nuclear explosion in the common room, he might be more vocally bothered by two people who aren’t himself or May arguing over what he is or isn’t allowed to do. “The wound from the bullet is gone, and we both know it.” Natasha pauses, and just when Peter thinks Iron is going to lose his shit in the silence, she continues, still acting as though nothing is amiss, as if she doesn’t have a very skilled assassin glaring holes into her face. “But if you really don’t want him to, why don’t you spar instead? You’ve been doing nothing but hang out in your lab and shadow Peter since you got here. The other two go stir-crazy when they have to sit still, so you have to be itching for something physical to do.”

Sam looks less than pleased with that idea. “Uh, Nat—” he tries to protest, but he and Peter aren’t even a part of the conversation.

Natasha bulldozes ahead, ignoring him entirely at Iron’s skeptical expression. “It’ll be friendly, and we can stop anytime you want.” And then, at Iron’s stony silence and _completely_ indifferent to the severity of the situation, she _rolls her eyes._ “You’ve been cooped up for a long time. Let off some steam,” she insists, and to Peter’s disbelief, he raises his brows, which might as well be him waving a white flag for all that he normally lets things drop.

“He isn’t involved,” he levels, nodding his head towards Peter.

Sam looks pale, and yeah, the show’s being run by Iron and Nat. They aren’t getting a say. In another world, he might be miffed, but he’s honestly still processing that things look like they’re going to get resolved without heads rolling.

“The kid stays on the sidelines,” she agrees, and Iron’s stare flits to Sam, searching him up and down, sizing him up. After a long, _long_ moment it goes back to Nat, and only then does Peter see Sam gulp.

He sympathizes with him.

“Deal. Where are we doing this?”

“Do I get a say here?” Sam yells, visibly exasperated, but there’s no cutting the cord of challenge stretched between Iron and Natasha.

Peter doesn’t get it, exactly, but if he had to make an educated guess, Iron isn’t comfortable backing down from a dare for whatever reason—probably a mixture of trauma and his stubbornness—and Natasha is exploiting that to force him to interact with her and Sam.

It’s not exactly how Peter wanted things to go, but he can’t deny that her methods are effective.

“No. Iron needs to work out some stress,” Natasha informs him without heat, though she and Iron don’t look away from each other, and while Peter would like to think Bucky could break up whatever the hell is going on between them, he’s not sure even he can stop Natasha when she puts her mind to something. “And there has to be an extra room around somewhere. This place has tons of empty space because no one thought they’d need to fix it up to be usable anytime soon.” She blinks, the motion more purposeful than Peter knew it could be, and her head swivels so that she can raise a brow at Sam. “What? Are you scared?”

Peter likes Natasha, but watching her manipulate two grown men via their respective competitive drives while she has a clumsily-crafted braid still brushing the back of her neck reminds him that he should never decide to work against her.

Sam scoffs. “Of course not,” he blusters almost immediately, and she hums.

“Then we’re all good.” She stands, the simple motion somehow cat-like, and seems to be waiting for everyone to follow her lead. “Let’s find somewhere to spar.”

Iron nods in agreement, and despite the grin that’s slowly stretching across his face when Peter dares to look back at him, he doesn’t find himself comforted.

(Walking after Natasha, Iron is just grateful Peter’s too focused on the spat that just happened to ask about the incident in the kitchen.)

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Bucky’s concern begins when he walks into the makeshift common room and finds it empty despite knowing Iron went to find Peter, who was supposed to be with Natasha and Sam there while Steve and Fury talk about whatever the hell it is Steve and Fury ever talk about, which begs a fairly straightforward question: where the hell did they all go?

He calls for them, beginning with the people who are least likely to be purposefully avoiding him—“Sam? Peter?”—and when that fails, he even tries the other half of the quartet that, now that he thinks on it, he’s not sure should be left alone together—“Iron? Natasha?”

No response.

Left with no other option, Bucky goes searching, and eventually, he starts to hear faint thumps and muttered curses and follows the sounds until he arrives in an unfurnished room dotted with the four of them.

Peter is off to the side with Natasha, but more notably, Iron is across from Sam, balanced carefully on his feet while Sam pants a little. Both of them look irritated, but Iron’s voice reaches Bucky first: “I already told you that I don’t have any weapons—I can’t maim you.”

“Oh, great, I love staying alive,” Sam replies with an eye roll.

“I never said I couldn’t kill you unarmed,” Iron shoots back, looking offended, and Bucky is officially lost.

He wasn’t sure Iron knew Sam’s name, although he cleaned him up post-shattering the computer screen. He doesn’t even think he’s seen them talk before, and their snarking is a nearly incomprehensible mash-up of Bucky’s life during and after HYDRA. He can’t put his finger on how he feels about it, if he’s being honest. It’s a bit of a pill to swallow, not bad, exactly, considering it’ll probably have good side effects in the long run, but still hard and foreign in his throat.

From his spot watching on the wall, Peter waves, looking a little tired. Bucky takes that as his cue to walk over, and he wishes he could say he’s surprised to see Natasha’s laser-like concentration on Sam and Iron as they start physically fighting.

Objectively, that should be concerning, especially knowing just how lethal Iron can be, but when he looks at the two of them, it’s obvious to see that Iron isn’t aiming to seriously hurt him, isn’t even giving most of his full potential. Frankly, if he was, Iron was right; he doesn’t need a weapon to kill anyone, and Sam would be long dead. With that in mind, he settles in to enjoy the show, though he’s not nearly as involved as Natasha, whose eyes are all-seeing above her crossed arms and wide stance.

“How’d this get going?” he asks Peter.

He sighs. “Natasha started it,” he explains, and Bucky watches Iron duck and roll out of Sam’s reach. “She said some bullshit about Iron needing to cut loose, and Sam was too stubborn to back down.”

Bucky finds that disappointingly believable, and huffs in amusement as Sam dodges a hit from Iron and Iron pulls a face. “Idiots,” he mutters, but though they’re fighting, there is none of Iron’s usual urgency to his motions, which are looser than Bucky’s ever seen.

It occurs to him, then, that Natasha made a strategic choice, pitting the two of them against each other. Sam has never been touched by HYDRA, not like him or Iron or Natasha. He’s someone experienced enough that Iron won’t feel bad for knocking him a good one, yes, but he’s also safe because he’s so new.

Bucky eyes her suspiciously. It’s not _unheard_ of for her to do things solely for her amusement, but even she has to know that Iron isn’t someone that should be provoked just because, not when he’s still so new to the world beyond HYDRA.

He makes a note to ask her about it later, out of Peter and Iron’s hearing range.

(“So, suggesting the two of them fight?

“Peter said he wanted Iron to make friends.”

“Didn’t know he had you wrapped around his finger too.”

“Shut up.”)

For the time being, he watches the match curiously, surprised to find a distinct lack of anxiety over the parallel it draws to what HYDRA had them do. He supposes it has something to do with the lack of four other malicious bodies in the room and their handlers, but even with that taken into consideration, there’s next to nothing of a life far less kind in this, or at least that’s Bucky’s take on things.

Bucky’s gaze slides to Peter and finds him uncharacteristically rigid. His arms are crossed more casually than Natasha’s, but at Bucky’s angle, he can see the wrinkles his fingers make in the fabric of his shirt as they clench it.

He knows HYDRA made him and Iron fight, and he feels instantly guilty for not thinking to ask sooner. Still, he lowers his voice, trying his best not to draw attention to him as he speaks. “You doing okay, kid?” he murmurs.

Peter nods, but now that Bucky’s paying attention, he can see the motion is jerky. “Fine,” he lies.

It’s not that Bucky thinks Peter’s moments away from breaking down, exactly, just that there’s an undeniable aura of unease clinging to him like plastic wrap, more of a nuisance than a real problem but a touch suffocating nonetheless.

At the look Bucky shoots back at him—a raised brow, his head lowered just so—he breathes a sigh that, while measured, is also clearly meant to steady him some. “I am. Iron’s not going to stop fighting stuff just because he’s not with—”

Bucky watches the words get stuck in his throat, and Peter swallows thickly, looking down.

“—with them anymore,” he finishes, avoiding naming the beast in question. “I need to desensitize myself to it.” He looks back to the fight, and Bucky can see the effort it takes. “This is a good place to start.”

He’s right, but that doesn’t mean Bucky can’t help him out. He nods in agreement, making a low sound, and in the corner of his eye, he watches Natasha turn to hear their conversation a bit better, though he doesn’t call her on it.

He nods to Iron, who Sam is allowing to get too close to his face, a mistake Bucky knows firsthand.

The Red Room trained the Widows to attack when they should be at their most vulnerable, and Iron got the same skill set when HYDRA found his initial hand-to-hand combat skills unsatisfactory. Bucky remembers that and, as if on cue, points to him at the exact moment he starts with a hand on Sam’s neck and manages to flip him onto his back from there. “See that?” he mutters. “If he was being serious, Sam wouldn’t be getting back up. And there? He’s backing up, giving him a second to get his bearings.”

If it were a normal human Sam was fighting, it might look like Iron was just getting tired, but Bucky has fought him more times than he can count; his minuscule mercies might as well be flares for their obviousness to him.

“If he was back there,” he offers, following Peter’s lead on leaving HYDRA unmentioned, “he’d still be gunning for him. He’s in control—there’s nothing for you to be scared of.”

Peter nods. He never looked all that upset in the first place, which means that him relaxing isn’t overly apparent either, but as one of the world’s leading experts on not being able to show emotion properly, Bucky reads between the lines and, visually speaking, sees his grip on his shirt slacken a little.

He keeps going, his voice measured. “You got his book for him too,” he reminds. “That’s the only way they could make him do what they want, and he’s destroyed it by now.” 

Bucky would know because he was there.

(He does his best not to think about his own puppet strings still hiding in the recesses of HYDRA’s schemes.)

“He’d never hurt you if he had the choice,” he adds and isn’t quite expecting the speed of the response he gets for it.

“I know.”

Bucky’s glad.

They keep watching the two of them sparring, Bucky instructing Peter how to find the empty spaces, the motions that are too slow for HYDRA’s standards, and when Sam finally declares that he’s, quote, _“done with this freaky super soldier shit”_ , Bucky looks to Peter with a question he doesn’t have to ask.

Peter shrugs. “I’m good,” he assures him, “and I’ll leave if I’m not. Go for it.”

Bucky stands by the fact that both Iron and Sam are dumbasses for falling for whatever trick Natasha doubtlessly pulled to get them going, but the fact remains that he could do with something to get him moving himself.

Permission granted, Bucky pushes off the wall. “My turn,” he announces, grinning from ear to ear, and standing a few feet from Iron, fully prepared to hand his ass to him without a loaded gun making him do it, he thinks that he’s grateful to Peter for letting him—for letting _both_ of them—create new memories to cover up the old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that?? Something that’s not angst?? Or whump??? Maybe even a little bit of??? Healing?? Shocker, I know. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this (comparatively) soft chapter, and thank you for all the love/comments on last week’s update! It means the world to me to get such kind feedback. <3


	15. Chapter 15

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_ **  
**

That night, Iron, for once in his life, goes to bed of his own volition, and it’s weird.

It’s not that he’s never tired. When he was figuring out how to fix the arc reactor, the only thing that kept him going was bad coffee he chugged and was grateful for because HYDRA wouldn’t have given him any at all. Even when he’s not burying himself in a project, his first instinct is to find a way to keep kicking, to stay conscious as long as possible and only go down when he can’t physically keep at it any longer.

However, after sparring for a few hours, Sam mentions that he’s going to sleep like a rock.

By his estimate, Iron still has a day and a half left in him before he’d crash naturally, but that sounds nice.

“Me too,” he agrees, and the quirk of Winter’s lips in his peripheral feels strangely like approval.

He still hasn’t told Peter about the freezer meltdown, but he’ll get to it eventually. It’s not a secret, exactly; he just doesn’t want it to be public knowledge, and in an unexpected turn of events, the two of them were around Natasha and Sam for basically the rest of the day, which, judging by Peter’s near-constant smile, was something the kid liked.

Iron enjoys making Peter happy. He knows he worries, and taking better care of himself would probably abate some of that, but he’s been laying in bed, waiting to fall asleep, for what must be hours now. It would figure that things aren’t going to be quite that simple.

He groans in frustration, purposefully muffling the sound. Peter has a room across the hall from him, and if he’s still awake too, he doesn’t want him hearing.

He tries to make himself lay still, but he’s never been very good at staying in one place. He doesn’t know if the desire to moveseedo is a HYDRA thing or just him, but regardless, he can’t take it any longer and climbs out of bed, heading to the kitchen. He’s not sure if he’s looking for food or just a change of scenery, but he’ll figure out his motivations when he gets there. Still keeping Peter in mind, he pads down the hall, careful to keep his steps quieted so as not to wake him. 

Both he and Winter were trained for stealth, and while they both possess the talent necessary for any espionage that might be required of him, it’s a simple fact that Iron is smaller, has less weight to balance, and as a result, has a tread that’s more silk than velvet, smooth and refined from years of practice combined with natural skill.

(He’s wondered recently, among other realizations, if some of that came from a time before HYDRA, when Howard and his fists lurked around the corners of the Stark mansion, but Iron is nowhere near ready to think about that.)

When he arrives in the entryway of the kitchen, he is greeted with the sight of the Captain sitting at the counter.

He immediately debates if it’s too late to walk away, but the Captain’s hearing is as good as his own. He heard him come, and leaving now will be awkward, not to mention he’ll probably say something about it to Winter, who Iron is trying not to bother. 

He called in favors from him when he had no other options, but by now, he should be self-reliant, able to stand without support or someone to talk him down because he opened a fucking _freezer._

So, yes, it is too late to walk away.

He makes himself move forward as though nothing is wrong, going for the cupboard to get a cup. A glass of water sounds good, and he’s yet to stop appreciating that it doesn’t have the metallic tang to it like he’s used to. He’d prefer it with ice, to be perfectly honest, but he’s not going to risk that, not with the Captain to see his every move.

(A phantom that storms through his mind and bears a face just to the left of Iron’s screams about how the Captain was ten times the man his son could ever be, and he knows on instinct not to trust him.)

He moves deliberately. Opens the cabinet, reaches for his glass, goes to the faucet, all slowly, all to not startle the Captain. He’s not scared of him, exactly, but there’s something about anything to do with Howard that makes Iron prefer to not cause any conflict.

Iron raises the rim to his lips and takes a sip, all without so much as looking the Captain’s way, and ignores the prickle of his ice-blue eyes on him. He almost wonders what he’s doing up, if he has nightmares like him and Peter and Winter, but then he decides he doesn’t care.

He wants nothing to do with the Captain, and though he’d like to stay in the kitchen longer, he sets his cup in the sink and turns to head out.

“Did I do something?”

Iron pauses halfway to the door. He turns, brows raised. “What?”

And the Captain, sitting at the counter, his eyes shining in the too-white light, looks uncomfortably earnest. “Did I do something? I know I was kind of an ass when we went to see Peggy, but—”

Iron would like to get away from him, and he cuts him off in hopes it will make the conversation go faster. “It’s not that,” he grits out. “I don’t care about what happened with Peggy.” He hasn’t even thought about it, really, or at least not about how the Captain talked to him, though if he remembers correctly, Iron did threaten to cut off his hand for touching him. Details. “I just don’t think our personalities mesh,” he lies.

The Captain looks utterly bewildered, and Iron would wager it’s not often people who aren’t his opponents dislike him on instinct. “Is there anything I can do?” he tries next, and Iron resists the urge to edge further towards the door, which his mind is outlining as the best escape route. He doesn’t wait for an answer, which is maybe a tell that Iron isn’t nearly as convincing as he’d like to be. “I haven’t done anything to Bucky after Insight, haven’t even seen him. He came to us for help rescuing you two.”

“It’s not that,” he snaps, low, wishing he’d fled when he had the chance as his eyes narrow.

“Then what? You get along with Natasha and Sam fine—”

Because they don’t have anything to do with _Howard_ , because they weren’t the ideal he was supposed to live up to decades ago.

“—and we don’t have to be close, but you’re important to Bucky. I don’t want there to be tension because I’m doing _something_ and I don’t know what. Just tell me. I want to fix it.”

He looks like a kicked puppy, his fingers linked in front of him, sincerity all but bleeding from his face, and _God_ , it pisses Iron off. He’s untarnished by time too good to be real, everything Howard ever said he was, everything that’s coming back to Iron in bits and pieces to leave him more bitter than he was before. He wants to know? _Fine._ Forget shying away.

Iron laughs, the noise dense and unforgiving, and as he meets his eyes, he watches the Captain flinch at the sound. “You can’t _fix_ bad parenting, but have at it. You want to know why I don’t like you? Give me a _break._ ” He steps forward, and he feels distinctly like a predator honing in on its prey, especially with the deer-in-the-headlights look the Captain is giving him. “Do you even know who I was? Has _Bucky_ told you that much?”

It’s his first time saying Winter’s other name, and he spits it out to splatter harshly on the floor. He pauses, waiting for a response with his hackles raised, and the Captain silently shakes his head _no._

That earns him a jagged smile to go with the laugh. “I was Tony Stark, son of _Howard_ Stark. Ringing any bells?”

He already knows, can see it from his wide eyes and otherwise gutted expression, but maybe there’s more of HYDRA left in him than he thought because a cruel voice in his head says _good_ , says _make him pay for it,_ and he listens.

“I only found out a few days ago,” he admits, his tone turning deceivingly light, “but being his kid is hard to forget, I guess. He had a lot to say about _Captain America,_ about all the good he’d done with you. Said _I_ had a lot to live up to and wasn’t pleased when I didn’t.”

The intricacies of those conversations are lost to time and the wipes, but Iron remembers the humiliation, the hatred, eating him from the inside out. He remembers the sting of a palm on his cheek, that Howard Stark died and left Tony Stark uncertain he ever loved him at all. He knows that whatever he said to his son in the video that saved his life was an empty gesture. He isn’t going to tell the Captain all of that, but it isn’t necessary to bring his point home.

“My memory’s hazy, but I think it might have been a little irritating to be expected to measure up a hero, even one who couldn’t save Winter.” 

Iron knows from Winter what happened on the train all those years ago, and while he knows the dig at it is low, he can’t stop himself from reveling in the parted lips, flushed cheeks, and widened eyes that make the Captain look like Iron’s reached out and slapped him. The faux-airness is gone from his voice, leaving behind hard-edges and the desire to make the Captain, a sitting duck for his hurt, experience a taste of the misfortune Iron’s just beginning to remember as he brings it home.

“So forgive me if I’m not feeling up to working with you, _Captain,”_ he all but snarls, his resentment oozing from the words. Instinct tells him to not escalate anything related to Howard, that he won’t come out on the winning side, but he stands regardless, feet planted, hands clenched and smarting in the dead of night.

The Captain looks crushed, but Iron doesn’t waver. He has faced worse than some hurt feelings and came out with a straight face. The Captain will not be the thing to crack him, he’s sure.

Except then he speaks and has the audacity to sound genuinely, deeply _ashamed:_ “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Iron hates how maliciously _easy_ it was to bring forth the apology, and he hates that he believes him even more.

He still doesn’t like him.

“Well, now you do,” he mutters and stalks away.

His mouth has gone dry again. He didn’t want to go back to bed so soon, really, but he can’t stand being around the Captain a moment longer. 

He has a hand on the doorknob to his room when he hears Peter shuffling out of bed.

Iron pauses, turning around as he waits for Peter to appear. As expected, his door creaks open, but his face is drawn tight with what looks like pain where it shows through the crack. “Iron?” he mutters groggily. “What are you doing up?”

He shrugs. “Getting a drink—couldn’t sleep. What about you?”

Peter looks at the ground, one of his many tells for when he’s about to lie, as Iron has deciphered for years now. “Couldn’t get comfortable.”

Iron frowns, coming towards him, and when he places a hand on his shoulder, a wince wracks the kid’s entire body. “Try again,” he chastises him even as he guides him back into his room. Peter allows himself to be moved, his body pliable as Iron lays him stomach-down onto the bed. He knows that his spine bugs him from time to time, a lasting effect of HYDRA’s experiments, and his hands land on his back, beginning to massage with what some might see as surprising gentleness given his bloody history.

Peter’s hands fist in his sheets, and Iron hears a sniffle that’s muffled by his pillow. He still hasn’t admitted to the pain, but Iron sees no need to rub his face in his suffering.

“How long have you been awake?” he asks instead, rubbing carefully between his shoulder blades. Peter’s told him about the scars that lie under his clothes, corrugated, grisly things formed from HYDRA leaving his body to heal without aid, and he can feel the raised surface of the one that pains him most through the material of his t-shirt. He fights the urge to cringe in sympathy.

“I don’t know,” Peter admits. He relaxes minutely under Iron’s hands, but his discomfort is still clear in the tension seeded through the clench of his muscles, another thing Iron can feel. “I had a dream about being back in the lab, and then when I woke up, my back was on fire.”

That he isn’t even trying to hide the extent of his ailment is telling of both its severity and the trust he places in Iron, which would be touching if Iron wasn’t so concerned. Iron doesn’t doubt his description, either. His memories of his time with HYDRA before they made him their Soldier are diluted, but he thinks he remembers the injections they gave him that set his skin aflame, made him writhe while they pressed him to give in and join them.

He doesn’t tell Peter about that, doesn’t need to give him any more reason to worry. The past is the past, and while they expect any problems happening in the present to be shared with one another, they skirt around much of the events that have shaped their current state.

(Some things are better left unsaid, like Peter’s suspicion that there is more torture in Iron’s backstory than he prefers to let on, like Iron’s base-line knowledge of how it’s come to only be Peter and his aunt living in the apartment he’s scaled so many times.)

“I had a panic attack today,” he does, however, confess. It’s not a light-hearted topic of conversation, but it’s also not surprising. Neither of them is recovered by a long shot, even if they do a good job at blending in with the others during the day, and while it’s nothing new, the subject is hopefully noteworthy enough to distract Peter from his predicament.

Peter’s head turns to the side, and Iron lifts one hand from his back to smooth some hair out of his eyes and behind his ear. “About what?” he asks, and Iron notices but doesn’t remark on the rasp that always comes into Peter’s voice when he’s struggling like this.

“I opened the freezer, and it reminded me of cyro. Winter saw, and he talked down. Still not good, but he got me under control fast enough.” His hands, having returned to the matter of his spine, rub gossamer circles near the small of Peter’s back. “Do you want me to get some ice?”

Doing so would mean braving the freezer, potentially with the Captain there to see him execute a ridiculously daunting task, but he’d do it for Peter.

(“Ask me or someone else when you want something out of there next time,” Winter had said, but Iron has just drawn a very clear line in the sand between him and the Captain, one he has no interest in smudging.)

As it turns out, it’s not even a problem. Peter shakes his head. “I’m good,” he mumbles, and when Iron’s gaze drifts from his back to his face, he sees his eyelids beginning to flutter. “As long as you’re doing that, I can handle it.”

Peter yawns as if to provide emphasis to his point, and Iron nods. “Whatever will make you feel better. Fury says they’re working on getting a better doctor to take a look at you, but his resources are stretched thin.”

Iron doesn’t voice the thought that occurred to him during their original conversation, that if he had the money from Stark Industries under his control, Peter wouldn’t have to wait. That’s food for thought, nothing he can act on just yet. His priorities at the moment are getting Peter back to his aunt and taking Pierce out, in that order.

(But there’s nothing wrong with considering his options in the meantime.)

Peter makes a muffled sound of acknowledgment. “Don’t yell at him about it. He’s made it pretty okay here for us.”

That ship sailed a few days ago, but Iron didn’t _yell_ at him as much as remind him just how much pain Peter is in and how he’ll continue to suffer without help, to which Fury pursed his lips and told him he wouldn’t bother if he was going to be rude.

Iron knows, by now, that he didn’t mean it, but it still put him in a dour mood for the rest of the afternoon.

“I’ll take care of Fury,” he promises. “You need to get back to sleep.”

“Can’t,” Peter mumbles in reply, stubborn as ever despite the pain. 

Iron hums, trailing his fingers over one of the notches on his backbone. “Fine then,” he begins, knowing arguing the matter with him will just work him up. “Tell me about Spider-Man.”

Peter’s alter-ego is a topic they don’t talk about much, in the scheme of things. For one thing, HYDRA’s meddling has added some gruesome connotations to Peter’s enhancements, but more than that, Peter admitted to him the day he woke up, telling him about the bite, that HYDRA didn’t snag him because they knew about the two of them; HYDRA found _Spider-Man_ , and his coincidental connection to one of their Soldiers was one of several reasons they tore him apart. As a result, there’s a certain negative aura around the name, and Iron would like to help ease Peter into erasing it.

(Peter has always been better than the world deserves, and Iron refuses to let HYDRA take away the good he puts into it.)

“What about ‘im?” Peter mumbles, his words already running together. Despite that he wants him to fall back asleep, Iron is interested in learning more about Spider-Man, and a sleepy Peter will think less about talking about it. Still, he’ll drift off soon enough, and Iron keeps the conversation moving to get what he can out of him before then.

“Anything—a story from patrol, maybe.”

Peter hums, thinking. “One time,” he starts, words distorted by a yawn, “I was swinging around, and I heard this dude talking on the phone in an alley. And, you know, dudes in alleys aren’t usually up to good business unless they’re, like, taking out the trash or something, so I got curious. An’ I dropped down expecting, like, a drug deal, but this guy had just found a whole box of kittens and was trying to figure out what to do with them.”  
  


“Were they cute?” Iron asks, unable to help himself. He’s honestly not sure of the last time he saw an animal like that, and the concept of just stumbling across a whole batch of them seems like something out of a dream.

Peter nods, though with his face buried in his pillow, the motion is more of an odd head wiggle than anything. “There were six of ‘em, and they were the fluffiest things I’ve ever seen. Orange fur, mostly, ‘cept one that was all black.”

There’s a long pause, and Iron’s rubbing his shoulder blades when he prompts him, though he knows the silence is telling of Peter starting to fall back asleep. “What did you do with them?” he asks, half genuinely curious, half wanting to remind Peter that Spider-Man is something he used to be proud of.

Peter lets out a soft breath. “I took them to the shelter for him. Checked back in a few weeks later, and the lady said they’d all been adopted basically the second they were ready, after all their vaccines and stuff.”

Iron’s looked up pictures of Spider-Man, seen the ratty suit he used to run around in—one HYDRA probably took and burned, now that he thinks of it—and he suppresses a chuckle at the thought of him appearing at some animal shelter’s backdoor, doesn’t want Peter to get offended and wake back up to defend his honor.

“Does your apartment allow pets?”

Peter shakes his head. “No, but May’s allergic to cats anyway. They were _really_ cute though. Would’ve kept one if I could.”

“Wherever they ended up, Spider-Man did a good job getting him there,” he assures him.

A beat, and then—

“Iron,” Peter whispers, and though he’s mostly asleep, Iron doesn’t miss the very real undercurrent of fear that snakes through his question, “they got me the first time on patrol. How am I supposed to go back to being Spider-Man if I couldn’t even protect myself from being taken?”

Iron’s stomach clenches, and as he takes a deep breath in, he reminds himself that as soon as Peter can get back to May, Pierce is a dead man. He’s positive his face doesn’t betray his fury, and when his voice comes, it’s far kinder than the vicious streak flaring violently up within him. “Last time, I wasn’t there,” he soothes him. “If they try to hurt you, I’ll get there first.”

(If there’s enough left of HYDRA to be a threat by the time Peter can return to being Spider-Man, Iron will consider his vendetta a failure, but he doubts Peter would be consoled by knowing the extent of his hatred.)

Peter doesn’t say anything else, but Iron keeps tending to his back, just in case the pain wakes him up again. However, he doesn’t realize how tired he is until his eyes begin to slide shut, and with his back against the wall, he nods off too, his palm resting between Peter’s shoulders.

(It is the first time since that fateful night the boy believed he drank too much whiskey that he allows himself to fall asleep around another person.)

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 4 HOURS LATER_

Steve shows up at Bucky’s room at the _ass crack_ of dawn. Bucky was a military man himself, once, but at present, when he manages to get to sleep, he indulges it as long as he can. The idea of being well-rested was something HYDRA discarded in favor of stimulants and fear, and his philosophy is that he’s making up for lost time, hence why he’s debating strangling Steve.

“Bucky,” he calls for the fourth or fifth time, standing outside his door. He’s not talking particularly loudly, but it pierces right through Bucky’s super soldier hearing, which the fucker knows, damnit.

He groans, reaching for an extra pillow he clamps over his head. He’s hoping that if he ignores him long enough he’ll go away, but no such luck.

He continues for a few more minutes, during which Bucky remembers how fucking _stubborn_ he is, Jesus _Christ,_ and he clambers out of bed to see what the hell it is he wants, irritated beyond belief.

“What?” he snaps when he appears in the doorway, rubbing one of his eyes.

“I need you to tell me how to make him not hate me.”

Steve helpfully doesn’t use a name for who he’s talking about, but Bucky’s good with context clues and, more importantly, has noticed Iron either glaring daggers at Steve or leaving the room entirely when he enters. Iron’s not a friendly guy in general, but Steve exceptionally pisses him off.

“What’s with the sudden urgency?” Bucky asks through a yawn. “And why _now?_ You couldn’t have waited until I got up on my own?” He knows the extra questions will irritate Steve, which is exactly why he asks them. If he’s going to intrude on his morning when it’s hardly even begun, he’s going to have to work for what he wants.

To his credit, Steve bothers answering him instead of saying his name with emphasis and expecting him to cave. “He came into the kitchen a few hours ago, and I bugged him to tell me what I did to upset him—

“Bugging someone? Doesn’t sound like you.”

“—and he gave me the rundown.” A pause, and then, at Bucky’s grumpily raised brows. “It’s worse than I was expecting. Meaner, too.”

(Bucky somehow doesn’t find that hard to believe.)

He debates on what he should do. On one hand, Iron clearly has a good reason to dislike Steve, though he doesn’t ask what it is, believing Iron would’ve told him if he wanted him to know. On the other though, he’d like to see his two closest friends get along.

Iron can keep rebuffing Steve if he hates him that much, anyway, or at least that’s Bucky’s logic when he hands him the key to thawing Iron out with another yawn.

“Get the kid to like you. He’ll fold easy enough if Peter asks him to.”

He has no prior experience to confirm that, technically, but Peter could say _jump_ , and Iron would probably say _how_ _high._

More pressingly, now that he’s given him a plan of action, Steve should leave him in peace.  


“That all?” he asks, thinking about how soft his mattress is going to feel when he falls back onto it.

Steve nods, though Bucky blearily notes his lips curling up in the outline of a shit-eating grin. “Does that mean you don’t want to do my morning work out with me?”

Bucky backs up and shuts the door in his face, too tired to even call him a punk.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Peter hasn’t _said_ anything to Iron about it, mostly because it’s entirely too rare to see him with his guard down and doesn’t want it slamming back up, but truth be told, he woke up first.

The image of Iron leaning against the wall, utterly relaxed and unconcerned with protecting himself, has lodged itself firmly in his memory. He looks younger asleep, Peter discovered, less haggard and angry and more like a guy who’s probably worrying about paying rent for the month, and the difference is startling, to say the least. **  
**

Peter knows a lot of things about Iron’s predicament, including that if he were just Tony Stark, he’d be just over forty, but it wasn’t until then that he realized just how much HYDRA stole from him. Past any disturbing youthfulness, however, he’s glad he got some sleep.

There’s not a clock in his room. His phone is long gone too, likely left somewhere on a rooftop from when HYDRA first snatched him up, so Peter doesn’t know exactly how long he got to rest, but it’s clear the few hours Iron got are doing him good. He’s in a better mood than usual, smiling as he walks around the kitchen and fixes them breakfast. For an ex-assassin, he’s a surprisingly good chef, but while Peter would like to ask, he knows that some topics, even as unassuming as cooking skills, are better left unbreached. As a result, he eats his omelet alongside Iron without complaint, and when they’re done, Iron suggests they go to the lab.

“You said you made Spider-Man’s webs, right? We could get a supply ready for when you can head back to the city.”

Peter tries not to show the ridiculous amount of excitement the idea incites within him but is skeptical of how successful the effort is.

(Spider-Man’s effectiveness as a protector might be something he questions after being overpowered by HYDRA, but Peter will never doubt the pure elation of the closest thing he can get to flying.)

“Yeah, if you want,” he agrees, attempting to sound casual.

Iron snorts, but Peter’s alright with being transparent at the moment.

“I’ll meet you there,” he tells Iron. “It can get a little messy, so I’m gonna’ get clothes I like less.”

It would be a lie to say any of the clothes SHIELD provided for him are what he would wear normally, but there are some that at least fit better or worse than others. Peter’s currently in the comfiest pair of sweatpants they gave him, and he’s not emotionally prepared to lose them to a volatile chemical reaction.

He’s on his way to the lab after getting changed when he runs into Steve—nearly literally, if not for the buzzing at his back that cues him to step out of the way in the nick of time. Regardless, Steve reaches out to steady him, his hands warm on his forearms.

“Careful,” he chides without heat, and Peter smiles sheepishly at him as he steps back.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” He lets go, and Peter moves to keep going, but Steve speaks.

“Where are you headed?”

Peter shrugs. “The lab. Iron and I are working on making some of the web formula I use when I’m—uh—Spider-Manning. Why?”

Steve shrugs too, though there’s something awkward to the action. “Just wondering,” he says, and the something awkward? It’s because he’s lying.

Peter can’t lie to save his life, but _yeesh_ , Steve might be worse than him.

As with many things that come with learning that Captain America is, at the end of the day, very human, Peter appreciates the chink in his armor. He can’t stop himself from smiling a little. “Did you want to come see?” he asks, and _maybe_ there’s a part of him that says having a big-time, world-saving superhero interested in Spider-Man is kind of the coolest thing ever, but he tries not to let it show.

Iron and, to some extent, Bucky baby him enough; he’d prefer if Steve, at least, thinks he can take care of himself.

Steve nods. “If you don’t mind,” he replies.

If looks could kill, the glare Iron shoots Steve when he walks into the lab with Peter at his side would level him to a mound of ash on the floor, like something out of a cartoon.

Peter decides not to let that deter him. It’d be awkward to kick Steve out now, so he grins as if nothing is wrong and sits on a table with some empty space. “I told Steve I’d show him how to make my webs, so he’s gonna’ hang with us,” he announces, diverting his eyes from Iron so it’s easier to pretend he’s not so obviously irritated. “Got any paper? Something to write with? I like listing it out so I don’t forget anything. When I do, it messes things up _really_ badly. Like, really, _really_ badly.”

“Over there,” Iron directs him with a tip of his head, and he scurries over to scrawl the notes that have been hanging out in his mind for the past few months. He _has_ a notebook with all the versions of his web fluid, but that’s back at his apartment, with May.

At the thought, his lips pinch, but he only lets his hand stall for a moment. He’ll get back to her; he knows that, but the sting of being away for so long, especially when May doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead, is an ever-lingering ache at the back of his mind.

He distracts himself from his homesickness by tuning in to the tension he can _feel_ behind him. Logically, he should be afraid of a clash between Steve and Iron, but he survived _Natasha_ antagonizing Iron yesterday. Comparatively, the two of them duking it out isn’t nearly as scary.

Neither of them has said anything, which only adds to the atmosphere, but Peter is determined to make it work. Iron needs as many people in his corner as possible, and Peter is especially in favor of Iron getting more superpowered friends who can squash HYDRA like a bug if they come after him.

“I’ve got it all,” he announces at last, giving his sloppy handwriting a last skim for anything he might’ve left out. If he doesn’t catch something, he’ll know soon enough, but he can at least try to limit the extent of the clean-up process.

He brings his list to Iron before beginning to dart around the room in search of the components he’ll need. In his peripheral, he can see that Iron only looks up periodically from reading to glance at Steve, keeping his eyes on what he apparently sees as a threat.

Peter’s reaching for some cleaning solution it doesn’t look like Iron’s touched yet when he speaks.

“Kid, I set the lab up for engineering, not chemistry.” A touch lower, he mutters, “Probably should’ve considered that before I told you we’d get your web fluid going,” before his voice returns to normal volume. “I can tell Fury to get this stuff for you, but it might take a few days.”

Peter, however, anticipated that problem.

“Oh, I mostly made it out of, like, toothpaste and May’s skincare stuff the first time,” he waves off the hiccup. “We might need to get creative, but I’m pretty sure we can find everything I need somewhere around here.”

He turns to flash a smile, and finds, despite Steve’s presence, Iron’s lips quirked too in what Peter would almost say looks like pride. “Fine then,” he says, pinching the list between two fingers. “Where do we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is just Iron bullying Steve with a dash of Peter having Iron wrapped around his finger smh, but I hope you enjoyed regardless! We have one more week of chill time at the SHIELD hideout after this chapter, and then it’s back to business as usual babey—aka me doing what I want. Thanks for reading, and thank you for the feedback on last week’s chapter! It means the world to me. <3


	16. Chapter 16

_IMMEDIATELY OUTSIDE A SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_  


“Okay, so, this isn’t a _great_ example of how this works because this place doesn’t have a whole lot of buildings, which, I mean, makes sense considering we’re at a secret hideout or whatever, but—”

“Kid, you better get going before Fury hears we let you out to play.”

They haven’t been put on lockdown, exactly—Iron himself got out easy enough to go see Peggy—but he would guess that Fury wouldn’t be particularly enthused at the idea of Peter flaunting his spider-y self for anyone with a camera pointed the right direction to see. Unfortunately for Fury, Iron would prioritize Peter’s happiness over his orders any day and, furthermore, is a curious creature by nature; he wants to see Peter in action as much as Peter wants to cut loose.

This is a much better outlet for him to exercise, he thinks, than the Widow’s plan yesterday, and he watches Peter fiddle with the web-shooters he put together in shockingly little time while the web fluid was cooling.

“You’re sure this is safe?” Steve asks, eyeing the trees, telephone poles, and minimal concrete structures dotting the landscape. Their hideout isn’t quite a bunker, but it’s not far from it. It’s certainly nowhere that would be on anybody’s radar, including HYDRA’s, especially without Iron’s expertise aiding them in the search.

Iron rolls his eyes, but Peter merely offers an enthusiastic nod. “I used to swing all around the city, and I never fell.”

Peter is more physically capable now, a newfound grace settled over him that regular humans don’t possess, but Peter is Peter; Iron finds that hard to believe, and he raises his brows.

Peter ducks his head, sliding in a cartridge of webbing. “Once I got the hang of web-slinging, I never fell,” he amends, and yes, that’s more like it, “but don’t worry about it! I’ve got it under control,” he assures them, and without waiting for any further complaints, aims at the corner of the building and yanks on the web.

Iron knows he’s stronger than the child he left on the kitchen floor all those years ago, can see the muscles hidden under the SHIELD-provided clothes that don’t quite fit him, but that hasn’t prepared him to see Peter _soar._

His body is lithe and sure, all the staunchness of an oak tree put into its most flexible branch, and it bends in the wind that must be rushing past him like it’s as natural as breathing. The whoop of delight he lets out is fitting for a fourteen-year-old, but there’s nothing coltish or experimental about the flip he goes into twenty feet in the air that would make Olympic gymnasts jealous; he’s having fun, yes, but he’s only allowed to do so by the sheer dexterity of his body, the confidence in his every movement.

Iron grins.

HYDRA’s taught him how to break down someone’s capabilities, but he’s never relished the act like he does now, finding reason after reason to admire what’s become of Peter in the year and a half he was away.

Peter’s a super soldier in his own right, but HYDRA could never dream up enhancements that lend to such joy. Peter’s the light to Iron’s darkness, and for the millionth time, Iron swears that they’ll never lay another finger on him.

“I guess he really does know what he’s doing,” the Captain breathes after a few minutes in which neither of them can do anything but stare. 

Iron, for all that he dislikes him, can’t even fault his incredulity. 

Peter doesn’t stop for breath when he reaches the top of the building, fluidly propelling himself towards a telephone pole that he swings around and onto a tree from.

“New York loves him,” Iron replies, knowing as much from keeping an eye on NYC’s local news. He’s against speaking with the Captain on principle, but Peter is a middle ground. Besides, he knows Peter would be over the moon to know the Captain admires what he does, and for him and only for him—the Captain may have helped Peter scrounge up all the materials for his web fluid, but he’s still tied to Howard in Iron’s mind—he can make nice. Then, lower, because Iron would prefer he doesn’t add the guilt from not helping his city to what Peter already has brewing from leaving his Aunt, “They miss him, too. There have been various bloggers and the like trying to find where he’s been for the past few months.”

If Peter chose to tune in to the conversation, he’d be able to hear the comment, but he’s distracted, as evidenced by the furious laps he’s making around anything and everything he can adhere himself to.

The Captain makes an interested noise. “Spider-Man, right?”

Iron nods, his eyes never leaving Peter. “The one and only.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the Captain shake his head in wonder. “He’s a good kid,” he tells him.

“I know,” Iron responds because he does, like anyone who spends more than three seconds around him.

And they talk a little more, comment on Peter’s home life or the injustice of HYDRA having tried to quash the brightest person Iron’s ever seen, but Iron doesn’t remember it after the shout that goes up as Peter realizes he’s run out of web fluid mid-swing.

What he will recall, as his limbs freeze and he realizes that, without an opponent to neutralize, he isn’t quite sure how to rescue someone, is that the Captain _moves._

One second, he is standing at ease at Iron’s side, and the next, he is across the field, a streak of golden-blonde hair that manages to break Peter’s free fall out of the sky. He doesn’t catch him, but he does get him in his arms, though the force of the impact sends them both rolling.

They tumble across the grass, and the tangle of their limbs tells Iron that it’s safe to move, that he, by some unforeseen miracle, has not failed Peter. He breaks free of his trance, running as fast as the Captain had to come to Peter’s side.

“Peter?” he asks, falling to his knees to look for blood, any glimpse of bone through skin. “Are you okay?”

His skin is warm under his touch, and Iron’s mind runs through any mission protocol he can remember, what he was supposed to do if his handler was compromised, but if it exists, the knowledge refuses to surface amongst the static of panic belying everything he should be able to understand. 

(The world is too fast and too slow all at once—why is it doing that? How does he make it stop? God, Peter was in trouble—Peter could’ve been _killed_ , and he did _nothing.)_

He doesn’t see any cuts as his gaze scours his form, though he notes that his chest is heaving. The Captain is there too, laying a few feet away and panting in the aftermath of his sprint, but he doesn’t register, is erased from the picture because Peter is all that matters.

“I’m okay,” Peter groans in an attempt to reassure him, but the words wash over Iron’s ears without processing. He keeps looking, scouring for evidence of his uselessness—and oh, _oh_ , that’s a HYDRA thing, isn’t it? But he _was_ useless. He didn’t help, wasn’t there.

(What is he if not something made to work for others?)

Peter’s hand squeezing his snaps Iron back to himself.

“Iron,” he breathes, “I’m _fine._ Steve got me. My wrist hurts a little, but that’s it, seriously. This isn’t even the worst fall I’ve had.”

His eyes are the bark of the oak Iron saw in him minutes earlier, immovable and enduring, and they bore into Iron’s own. He lifts his wrist to show the bruise forming over it, but nothing looks out of place with the bone, not even any broken skin as Iron carefully twists it for inspection.

“Nowhere else hurts?” he manages, the gentle grip he maintains not matching the franticness he still feels, the desire to fix what’s already happened.

(Something’s not right about it all, but he doesn’t know what.)

“No, no. I’m good,” Peter swears, and Iron searches his face for any hint of a lie. He knows he’ll see it if it’s there, but he finds nothing but earnestness in its expanse. “I just got a little carried away—forgot we were just doing a trial run with the new ingredients.”

Iron nods, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. It’s okay, Peter’s not hurt, but—

(But when Peter lifts a hand to fiddle with his web-shooters, Iron braces himself for a blow.)

He doesn’t flinch. HYDRA would’ve flayed him alive for that kind of weakness, and it has thus been brutalized out of him, but a beating would be easier to process than the unpleasant realization that ripples through his consciousness: the something that’s _off_ about the situation is that he’s expecting a punishment that will never come.

He hates moments like these, realizing that no matter how far he’s run from them, HYDRA sunk their talons deep enough in him to scar.

“Let’s head back inside,” he suggests and stifles showing how startled he is when the Captain speaks, his presence having faded from Iron’s mind.

“That sounds like a good idea,” he agrees, and Peter doesn’t complain when Iron hovers over him as he stands, just in case he needs help. However, after a quick wince and dusting off his clothes, Peter walks normally, though his hand clasps and releases his hurt wrist intermittently.

The Captain glances to Iron, and Iron is surprised to realize there is a distinct lack of the irritation he would’ve felt at the gesture minutes earlier. “Should we have a medic inspect him still?” he asks—asks _Iron_ , who has somehow become the one in charge of Peter in this strange world where he’s free to care for him, where he can be there to see that Peter is protected.

He nods quickly. HYDRA didn’t like indecision, and it still feels too miraculous that Iron’s failure, which would have led to catastrophic consequences back with them, has merely resulted in a sore wrist. “Yes,” he answers verbally, and then, with a somewhat apologetic glance to Peter because he’s almost positive he’s blowing things out of proportion but can’t take the chance that he’s not, “just in case.”

Peter shrugs, unfazed. “Whatever makes you guys happy.”

Iron appreciates that he’s letting him have this without complaint more than he knows how to say, and as they walk, he thinks of the Captain’s sheer _speed_ , how he didn’t hesitate to jump into action where Peter was concerned.

(He’s as good as Iron knows Howard remembered him, but he used that to save what Iron couldn’t live without, and that counts for so _much.)_

“You know,” he says idly, “the Widow broke my arm once.” Peter looks vaguely disturbed but not surprised at the information, as does the Captain. Before either of them can figure out how to respond to that, Iron continues. “Or at least she was there while another Widow did it. Details are hazy, but you’re lucky she didn’t ask to spar with you,” he tells Peter, nudging his arm with his own.

Peter shudders. “She’s terrifying,” he admits. “Like, don’t get me wrong, I like her a lot, but she’s scary as hell.”

“And don’t forget it,” the Captain chimes helpfully, to which Iron allows a subdued laugh to leave his lips. “She’s handed my ass to me more than once.”

Iron doesn’t like the Captain. He _doesn’t,_ but a touch of camaraderie sprouts within him at the idea that there’s someone else who knows the Widow as he does: dangerous, even if she prefers to threaten the same people as Iron these days.

They’re nearing the room Fury has turned into something of an office to have him send for someone to look Peter over, but as they draw closer, Winter comes out of the door to the room, holding a stack of files. He focuses in on Iron, looking not tense but not at ease either. “Hey,” he greets, coming to meet them. “Fury got some intel I want to go over with you,” he explains as their eyes lock, and there’s something about the intensity of his gaze that lets Iron know there’s more to it than what he’s saying, likely because he’s trying to censor himself in front of Peter.

Iron is conflicted. Winter wouldn’t ask for him if it wasn’t important, especially not when he’s with Peter, but the anxiety of needing to know that Peter’s okay—actually okay, not just he-doesn’t- _feel_ -hurt-okay—is there too, swirling edgily near the forefront of his mind. 

He opens his mouth to tell Winter it’ll have to wait, but Peter speaks before he can. “I’ll stay with Steve, and he’ll come get you if something’s wrong,” he suggests, and for a moment, Iron balks.

Even before he caught Peter from his free fall, Iron knew the Captain wouldn’t _hurt_ him. Still, he associates him with Howard, and Howard couldn’t be trusted with children. Survival instincts tell him to keep an eye on Peter, but the fact of the matter is, the Captain was there for him when Iron wasn’t.

(The Captain _could’ve_ let Peter down, could’ve taken after the man who took such pride in having created him, but he is apparently kinder than Iron first allowed himself to consider.)

If he didn’t let him get hurt in the first place, it’s logical that he would report any bad news to Iron, and if nothing else, Iron knows he can trust reason.

He looks Peter in the eyes, poised, as usual, to catch any lie he might try to tell. “Are you okay with that?”

Peter nods. “Yeah, it’s no problem,” he replies, and Iron finds no tension in his posture that would betray his words.

“Alright, then.” He moves his gaze from Peter to the Captain, who holds up under it much better than he did in the wee hours of the morning, and the word comes to him much more easily than he thought was possible. “Thanks,” he tells him, and as he turns to walk with Winter, he misses the brightening of the Captain’s face with what they both know, even if Iron won’t admit it, is a step towards clearing the wall Iron has put between them.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

“We’ve got a timeline on getting the kid back to his aunt. Two, three weeks max, but it’ll just be a visit until Fury can spare more people to be permanently stationed around his apartment.”

“And you couldn’t say that in front of him, why?” Iron asks, leaning against the wall of Bucky’s room. If he were anyone else, Bucky might find the snark annoying, but Iron’s been under lock and key for way, _way_ too long. It’s lucky that he remembers enough about who he is to have such a sharp tongue. Bucky, on the other hand, struggles to reconcile the post-HYDRA version of himself with the comparatively boyish, carefree person who served his country, but that’s a crisis for a time when he’s not bursting at the seams with information he knows Iron will want to hear, no matter how much he hassles him along the way.

He rolls his eyes. “I could, but you’ll tell him anyway and can deal with his questions then. I’d prefer to get straight to the point.”

Iron raises his brows as if to say _get on with it then._

Bucky planned on having a little more tact, ease into it some, but if he’s going to be rude, fine.

“When Fury sends Peter to see her, Sam and Steve will go with to supervise and guard the visit. Natasha, you, and I are going to be raiding a HYDRA base.” Iron looks intrigued but not entirely sold on the idea, and Bucky drops the real lure. “Pierce is scheduled to be there when we are.”

Predictably, Iron tenses for a moment, his fingers stilling in their tapping on his crossed arms before the motion begins again, faster. Paired with the gleam that comes into his dark eyes, Bucky is reminded of the rapacious anger Iron holds within him. He’s clamped down on it well since finding the truth about who he used to be, mostly for Peter’s sake if Bucky had to wager a guess, but he can see it building, itching to explode if he could only find the proper culprit to take the blast.

“What about the other four?” he asks, voice sharp but not aimed to cut Bucky. “HYDRA has to know that the two of us are working together now. Pierce is smart; he’ll expect us to come for him and’ll have the best guard he can find until we’re back with HYDRA or confirmed dead. The two of us might not be enough to get through them, and the Widow is good, but—”

He trails off.

Bucky has had the other four Soldiers beat him bloody, but there was always something of a target on Iron’s back, for whatever reason, during training with the six of them. He, over anyone, knows the sadism they’re capable of, and he’s had years of training to learn specifically how to beat each one.

They’d be idiots not to respect Natasha’s skill, but super soldiers, created to work as a lethal team, are nothing to sniff at.

“I told Fury as much, and he said he’d take it into account. If I had to guess, that means we’ll be slipping in quietly, avoiding as much conflict as possible, and staying together—the two of us, at least.” 

Natasha’s probably going to get sent after more files. She’s better at infiltration, anyway, and even if he and Iron weren’t built to kill as brutally as possible. Fury wouldn’t waste his time trying to stop them from going after Pierce, either.

Iron looks up at the ceiling, though his gaze is a touch distant, letting Bucky know he’s internally weighing the pros and cons of that plan. “Like old times, huh? Been a while since we’ve gotten to work together.”

The comment isn’t objectively striking, but it sends Bucky back, dredges up memories he hasn’t even fleetingly thought about since Iron appeared at his apartment in Bucharest, an incident that, of itself, seems like it happened years ago.

_A roguish smile, a market, a train station—_

“That last time didn’t go as planned, did it?” he agrees and privately makes note to think on it more, see what other details he can scrounge up. Iron might remember more of it, but the humorless smile he flashes in reply coupled with Bucky’s suspicion that what happened ended . . . _badly_ for both of them, but especially Iron, makes him decide it wouldn’t be kind to ask.

“We always did make a good team,” Iron muses, and though Bucky knows he’s right, he has to wonder what it could’ve been like if things were different, if their friendship was built on years of gentle jokes and loyalty versus a mound of corpses and the smell of gunpowder. He’ll never know, but at the very least, they got out and have this, now.

He can work with that.

He blows out a breath, hoping to diffuse the tension he can still see in the lines of Iron’s body. “If you want to call me doing all the work while you watched on the sidelines being a team, then sure,” he cracks, and just as he wanted, the glittering of Iron’s eyes turns playful instead of dangerous.

“Whatever you say, Snowflake,” he responds, and though their voices rise with an argument, Bucky will take that over the jeers of their past in a heartbeat.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - 2015_

Iron, unsurprisingly, frets over Peter when he comes back from getting looked over after his fall, which, he wants it noted, really wasn’t that bad. He’s fallen higher than that onto concrete and come off with no more than a few bruises—probably due to some spider-induced enhancement. Grass, in comparison, is a much kinder surface to receive him.

“You’re fine?” Iron asks immediately after he and Steve find him after the impromptu check-up.

Peter nods. “I’ll have some aches here and there, but the lady says I’m okay.” He figured as much, with a few months to figure out what it feels like when he’s _injured_ -injured before he got kidnapped, but he didn’t mind going to give Iron some peace of mind.

Iron, though, hums in dissatisfaction and looks to Steve to ask him, too: “He’s fine?”

_Rude._

Iron doesn’t even like Steve! Peter’s not great with people himself, knows he’s too awkward to really fit in and can’t start small talk for the life of him, but he’s picked up on the not-at-all subtle cold shoulder Iron gives him at every chance possible. His little mishap was the first time he’s seen him be even remotely nice to Steve, and maybe he should’ve thought more about letting those two hang out together because now there are even more people to be worried about him.

(May appears in his mind, the scent of coconut shampoo clinging to her as she smiles and wags a threatening finger at him. “I can use all the help I can get dealing with you,” he can imagine her saying, and God, he misses her.)

“The nurse cleared him without a problem. She did say that it was unusual that he was essentially fine, though.”

(Another image, then, of a man in a white coat looming above him—“The little spider is certainly _interesting_ right down to the bone,” he teases above Peter’s paralyzed form—and when he’s dumped back to his cell, Peter finds that one of his ribs is shorter than he remembers.)

He stiffens, but while he sees Iron’s eyes narrow and take note, he covers up his discomfort at Steve’s words with a grin that’s a bit too wide. “See? I’m all good, so there’s no need to worry,” he exclaims, bouncing past Iron to go sit on the couch because even if he’s not concussed or anything he’s still _sore_ , okay.

Iron still seems doubtful, but he appears to reluctantly trust that Steve, at least, is telling the truth, if only because he’s trying to win Iron over. He moves to sit with him, and Peter doesn’t have to ask for his arm to settle around him, a solid but simple weight. He doesn’t remove them, either, not even when Steve and, to a lesser extent, Bucky look surprised at how willingly he shows affection, something Peter has been working on with him in the weeks since waking up in a SHIELD-provided bed.

(Especially considering Iron hasn’t been touched in years—because beatings or sparring don’t _count_ , no matter what he says to try and reassure Peter that _he’s okay, honestly_ —he’s proud to say that his hugs are starting to feel as natural as May’s.)

In that moment, sitting with Iron, moving the conversation to what they want to do with the rest of the afternoon, Peter’s life feels easier than it has months, and when Iron tells him that night before they head to bed that he’s a few weeks away from being able to see the last bit of family he has left, the tears that come are mostly happy.

Iron panics a little to see him upset, but Peter shakes him off despite the intensity of the sobs that come later, thinking of telling the boy curled on a hard cot and nursing freshly-formed scars that he really will make it out, that someone will save him.

 _I’m coming home, May,_ he thinks, and the days slipping by in a countdown he thought impossible for so many miserable hours under the knife pass with cards, movies, and sparring matches that he eventually gets in on after being cleared by a doctor, coaxed carefully through different stances and moves by Bucky under Iron’s watchful eye.

(Iron fights too, but always with the others. He and Peter are nowhere near ready to face one another like that anytime soon.)

And during the nights, when their nightmares or his pain keep them from sleeping, Iron rubs his back, and they work through whatever the problem is. Peter even, once or twice, talks about what HYDRA did to him, that first laborious trek through the halls to the lab, the countless scars that lie under his pajamas, able to admit some of the horrors more freely in the darkness than in the light of day, and he pretends not to notice the tight, angry motions that appear in Iron’s massages when that happens.

It’s a lulling, inherently temporary peace, interrupted only by the meetings Fury calls that remind Peter about the other half of the plan to take him to May: Bucky and Iron’s mission to take out Pierce.

(They never use the word _assassinate_ in front of Peter, but he knows exactly what Iron is capable of, and past the clingy, needling fear of losing yet another person he loves, he knows that, for all Iron talks about the potential challenges of the operation, Pierce is a dead man walking.)

Peter tries not to think about the morals of not feeling conflicted about the decision. He _knows_ murder should bother him, but he thinks of the points of Pierce’s smile when he sat at his bedside, the way he tried to convince Peter giving away the secrets of his relationship with Iron was justified, and can’t muster much sympathy, if any.

The night before everything is set to happen, Peter keeps drifting off and waking up every couple of hours, and it gets old fast. Out of habit, he hovers outside of Iron’s door, hoping for some help, but as he listens for the soft in and out of his breaths, he hears nothing.

Huh.

If it was a nightmare, Iron would be sitting in bed, breathing heavily until he drifts off again or Peter comes to talk with him, so it’s probably nothing to worry about. 

But Peter still can’t sleep.

It’s not that he’s completely reliant on Iron, by any stretch of the imagination. In his cell and back at his apartment, he’s made himself doze off plenty of times, but if Iron’s there, the process will be faster, and really, he needs all the sleep he can get; he wants to be fresh-faced when he sees May.

(And if Iron playing with his hair, rubbing circles into his back, would reassure Peter that he’s going to be _fine_ no matter how much faith he rationally has in his fighting skills, that’s just for him to know.)

If he’s not in his room, the kitchen is Peter’s next bet for where he might be hanging out this late at night, and he pads silently down the hall. In a different life, he might be embarrassed at his wants, but Iron has seen him at rock bottom. Asking for some comfort so he can sleep is comparatively normal, but as he draws closer, he hears voices—Bucky and Iron.

Peter pauses.

He knows it’s not good manners to eavesdrop, but his hearing is better than any of the super soldiers. He’s nearly certain they haven’t heard him coming, and he’s curious to see what they might talk about without what they see as a kid in the room, if either of them is more forthcoming when they’re not trying to make things PG-13.

At first, it’s boring stuff, inside jokes and glancing commentary on the sparring he and Bucky have been doing, but just as he’s moving to continue on his way, Bucky poses a question that takes him off guard.

“How did you and the kid end up that close, anyway?”

It surprises him that Iron hasn’t already told him their story, but he listens anyway, eager to hear his side of it.

Iron begins vaguely. “What’s there to tell? You’ve seen the file on the mission, haven’t you?” Peter knows about the file, though he declined to take a look at it himself. “HYDRA sent me after his parents, and I got around my programming to spare him because he technically didn’t witness anything. I remembered it, felt bad, and kept coming back to check on him. When he was real young, he got himself into a mess, and I had to reveal myself to get him out of it.”

That checks, technically, but it doesn’t cover the fear Peter remembers more than anything else from that day after school, followed closely by utter bewilderment as the man who came back—the man who he thought came back to _kill him_ , only to leave him utterly unharmed—somehow put him at ease and looked at him with a pain Peter, even as a kid, felt down to his marrow when he told him why he went after his parents.

He hears Bucky scoff. _“Yes_ , I’ve read it. I’m not an idiot,” he replies accusingly, “but that can’t be it. If it was just an assignment, you wouldn’t have had any reason to remember him.”

The words ring in Peter’s ears, and though he’s never considered it that way before, he has a point. He knows Iron struggles to recall the vast majority of his deeds with HYDRA, so how _did_ he remember him?

The long pause that follows the question leads Peter to suspect Iron’s thoughts on the matter, but his reply confirms it. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I’ve never thought about it. Frankly, I was grateful to remember anything at all, but if I had to guess, my subconscious might’ve got hung up on how similar our stories are, at least as far as HYDRA goes. Dead parents, hopelessly outmatched in the worst moments of our lives, the works.” He laughs, but it’s harsh, humorless, and his voice is quieter, if a little sharp, when he speaks again. “Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s messed up. It’s not like I actually think it’s funny; it’s just—”

Iron tapers off, and Peter realizes that his heart is beating fast, that he wasn’t sure what he was expecting from Bucky’s inquiry, but while he’s not in over his head, he’s sinking ever so slowly.

When he doesn’t move to finish his sentence, Bucky prompts him. “It’s just what?”

Peter can barely catch his reply, soft and strangely vulnerable. “I’d do anything for him, but I can’t fix that mission. I _know_ I didn’t have a choice back then, but he got fed to the wolves because of me a decade later. It’s the same thing I went through, and it should’ve never repeated itself.”

Peter presses a hand over his mouth. He knows, rationally, that Iron struggles with his past, that he was never supposed to come back to him, but it’s still a blow to realize the miraculousness of their relationship, that Iron’s guilt and the desire to see him safe stemming from it broke through years upon _years_ of torture, conditioning. Moreover, he hates to think of it, even if the memory has grown hazy over time, people blurred to shapes and horror dulled to the ache of what he’s lost, but he knows the beginnings of his story with Iron are rooted in blood. 

But what if he’d never stopped by again after that terrible day in the kitchen? What if he never sent Bucky to watch him, leaving nobody to suspect HYDRA when he was taken? What if he didn’t know Iron walking into the fight and ended it as a limp form on the ground like the challenger before him, not worth caring for without his connection to the Soldier?

It’s a gruesome series of events, but he’d never have escaped without Iron on his side.

(He thinks of steel tables and syringes and scars, and he shudders there in the hallway.)

Evidently, Bucky reaches the same conclusion, his voice low and unyielding. “HYDRA didn’t kidnap him because he knew you, idiot. They kidnapped him because he was Spider-Man, and you saved his life when you sent me after him. Neither of us can change the past, just try to do better now that we can.”

There’s another long pause, and then Iron blows out a faint sigh. “When did you get all zen?” he asks, and though the words still lack genuine amusement, Peter trusts Bucky to make sure he’s okay. He’s had enough of eavesdropping for the foreseeable future, and he slinks back off to bed, comforted by the revelations brought forth by the conversation.

If Iron could beat the odds to care for him, it stands to reason he can survive the events of the next day, and at long last, Peter’s able to drift off to sleep.

//

_SHIELD SAFE HOUSE - THE NEXT DAY_

It’s strange to be back in tactical gear, to say the least. Iron is, aside from a few upgrades he manufactured in the lab, wearing the clothes HYDRA had him wear—worn in for easy movement and already tailored to his frame—and his face itches where his muzzle would be if he was in HYDRA’s custody.

Winter isn’t an exact mirror of him, having lost some of his gear in his never-ending efforts to outrun HYDRA, but he’s pretty damn close.

It might be creepy, but the emotion playing over his face as he talks with the Captain provides all the contrast necessary to separate him from being the Soldier. As for Iron, he finds his own division staring at Peter, memorizing the flop of his ever-so-slightly rumpled curls, the curve of his impish smile as he teases him—just in case.

(He knows he’ll be okay, knows he and Winter have each other’s backs, but HYDRA has only ever torn the two of them apart, and he can’t shake the fear that this time will be no different.)

“Give the two of them a run for their money,” Iron tells him as they prepare to head out, referring to Sam and the Captain. The line is hardly creative, but he’s more concerned about soothing Peter before they go their separate ways than maintaining his normal wit.

He’s already had a _talk_ with the two of them, thanking them for their help but emphasizing that, should Peter be hurt, he cannot be held responsible for his actions. He trusts them, really, doesn’t even mind the Captain much these days after the care he showed Peter when he fell, but a little fear never hurt anyone.

Peter’s grin widens. “You too,” he replies before his brows knit for a moment. “Well, not the two of them, exactly, but HYDRA. Kick some ass for me,” he encourages, and Iron is reminded that, for all he’s gone through, Peter is just a kid.

(A kid he’d pull the stars from the sky for.)

“Your wish is my command,” he responds, as cheesy as everything else he’s said, but it falls cozily between them, deceivingly lighthearted for the gravity of the situation.

Iron eyes the clock on the wall. Fury is expecting them to head out in a few minutes, and after a moment’s hesitation, he tugs Peter to him, arms looping around his slender shoulders in a movement that has become familiar in the weeks he’s had to relearn what it means to be human. Peter holds him back just as tightly, his chin tucked over the base of Iron’s neck and hair tickling his cheek.

“I’ll see you later,” Iron promises him, saying nothing about the clench of Peter’s fingers in the fabric of his shirt even as he nods, though the motion is limited by his position.

“I know,” he murmurs back, and they cling to each other for another few moments that are simultaneously eons long and all too short before they draw back.

Iron looks down at him, committing his last expression to memory, and is struck by the thought that a hug isn’t enough this time. Before he can talk himself out of it, he bends down and gently kisses Peter’s forehead.

In his mind, he hears the whisper of an Italian lullaby, a crisp accent, and the memory of both is beginning to fill out the contours HYDRA carved into his memory.

(Unbeknownst to Iron, not at an angle to see it, Peter lets his eyes close, the exchange feeling utterly natural despite its newness.)

The memories and the affection ignite a nudging warmth within Iron, the first sparks to a bonfire, and as he pulls away, they smile at one another before Iron breaks and strides away towards the jet.

He has Peter to return to after this, and that is reason alone to hold tight to that heat, able to ward off a chill as easily as it can be loosed on a defenseless forest.

(He’ll use it to incinerate anyone in his path.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In regards to the fact that the plot of this fic is returning to more action very soon: ah shit, here we go again. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy a chapter that’s a little bit longer than usual, and as always, thank you for all the sweet comments on last week’s chapter! I appreciate them all more than you know. <3


	17. Chapter 17

_A VEHICLE EN ROUTE TO NEW YORK CITY - 2015_   


Peter’s foot taps on the floor of the car. Steve’s a pretty safe driver, all things considered, though when Sam started ragging on him and Peter spoke up in his defense, he admitted that he’s being better than he normally is because Peter’s with them.

Peter thinks about telling them that he normally drives with May, who weaves in and out of New York City traffic like a madwoman and has the foulest mouth of anyone he knows, but thinks better of it. May is special, and he’s afraid of opening his mouth and doing something that might shatter his fragile sense of excitement. Being able to see May again, having a chance at something normal, seems too good to be true, and until he sees her again, gets wrapped up in her arms and smells her coconut shampoo, he can’t risk something going wrong, even if he knows, logically, that nothing bad is going to come of talking about her.

(But if he does, if he explains that she loves horror movies but can only watch them when he’s out of the house because they scare the shit out of him, that she loves lasagna but burns it every time, that she sets her morning alarms in six minute intervals because five seems too uniform, it might make things too real, and Peter is struggling to believe that something this amazing is happening in the first place.)

“You nervous?” Sam asks. He’s sitting in the backseat with Peter, though Peter told him he could take shotgun, that he’d be okay.

(He _would_ be okay if Sam sat in the front, but it’s nice to see someone else, an extension of the fact that while he _can_ handle being on his own, he’s discovered that it feels better not to be.)

Peter spent a lot of time with nothing but his thoughts for company in his cell, and talking where he can see Sam’s face is nice.

To his question, however, he shrugs. “Kind of. I’m excited to see her, but it just—” He tapers off, and his feet keep tapping. “For a while, back there, I thought I was never getting out. It’s a little surreal that I’m getting to go home at all.”

Sam hums thoughtfully, and that’s something Peter likes about him; while he doesn’t pretend nothing happened—that’s more Natasha’s thing, besides—he never acts like Peter is weird for how he acts now that it’s over. “That seems fair,” he admits. “Hopefully once you see your aunt, you’ll feel better. It’s always weird, being separated from what you know and trying to come back to it. I struggled with it a lot coming back from deployment.”

Peter nods. It’s nice to know that he’s not being unreasonable, that someone like Sam went through something similar, but then again, Sam usually knows the right thing to say. He figures it probably comes with the territory of being a therapist, but still. Peter’s glad that, in a safe house full of ex-assassins and super soldiers, there was someone like him around to talk to—still pretty fucking cool, but not so otherworldly.

Speaking of otherworldliness, though, Peter does, admittedly, miss Iron.

It’s weird, being farther away from him than he’s been for a good few weeks. Getting up to get a snack—Iron is just in the common room. Having a nightmare—Iron is across the hall. Wanting to spar—Iron is watching a few feet away.

It’s not dependency, not by a long shot, but ever since Peter figured out that Iron was just as much a victim as him, he’s felt safer with him around. However, while driving away from him now is strange, it’s not unbearable. He trusts Sam and Steve to keep him safe, and after the past few weeks of learning how to fight— _really_ fight, not falling back on instinct and his sixth sense to figure out how to throw a few punches in a back alley brawl—he trusts himself more, too. So, he sucks down the funny feeling in his stomach when he looks up to ask him a question or crack a joke and finds empty air in his stead, focusing instead on the thrill of seeing his family again and ignoring any lingering worry he feels that Iron’s mission might go awry.

“I just want her to know I’m okay,” he admits after a bit of silence. “We’re all each other has.”

From the driver’s seat, Steve speaks up, his voice that has led soldiers to battle made soothing. “We’re gonna’ get you back to her, kid, and hopefully, you’ll get to stay at home sooner rather than later.”

Peter’s heart twists in his chest at the thought of all the time he’s missed in the apartment that used to belong to all three of them, but he tries not to show it. “Yeah,” he agrees, forcing enthusiasm into his voice despite the jumble of emotions still tossing around in his head. “That’d be nice.”

(It’d be nice, but the fact remains that he was dumb enough to get taken and leave May all alone in the first place.)

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 10 YEARS AGO_

May is switching her laundry when the phone rings, and her first thought is _finally_ , her prescription is ready. She pads over, ready to clear up the persistent ear infection she’s somehow gotten the pleasure of dealing with, and expects to hear the nice—if hard of hearing—lady from the pharmacy a few blocks over.

Instead, she’s informed that she’s being phoned as one of Peter Parker’s emergency contacts, that there’s been an unfortunate incident and the police would like her to come down to the precinct.

 _Unfortunate_ , they merely say. It is _unfortunate_ that her brother and sister-in-law have been killed, _unfortunate_ that their son was found screaming in front of the bodies, _unfortunate_ that May is the one who has to go pick him up because Ben is pulling longer hours recently and is still at work. 

Her husband isn’t home, she says mechanically, but she’ll give him a call and be there as soon as she’s able.

May hangs up the phone, and she realizes that tears have begun to slip quietly down her cheeks. _You can’t break down, not yet,_ she thinks, and her voice only cracks for a moment when Ben’s supervisor picks up her call and she asks to talk to him.

But when the first words out of his mouth are “May, is everything okay?” she can’t help herself.

She means to tell him, she really does, but her mouth opens and out comes a sob, choked and gut-wrenching. May’s biological family has never been great, and Mary and Richard were such _good people_ —how can they be gone, just like that? 

“May, what’s wrong? May? Sweetheart, you have to calm down—tell me what’s happening,” he urges, but even her husband, steady as he always is, sounds shaken. May could let herself dissolve then and there, but she remembers the horrible reality of the situation—the little boy waiting for someone to come to his rescue.

If she’s going to be that someone, she has to get through this call, and she sucks in a breath to center herself. “I just got a call from the police,” she manages, and though she’s still crying, her words are at least comprehensible now. “There was an—”

Accident is the first word that comes to mind, but it wasn’t. How can murder be an _accident?_

(Accidents are _unfortunate_. Murder is deliberate.)

She starts over. “I just got a call from the police. Mary and Richard are dead. They think it was a home invasion right now, but Peter is down at the station, not hurt. I’m going to get him, see what’s going on.”

The words are blunt, almost callous with their lack of tact, but how would she ease into the subject? She’s still reeling herself, but can’t waste time. She has to get this done, and then she has to get in the car, and then she has to get Peter, and then—

(And then what? What does she do in a world where half her family is gone?)

All she hears on the other end is breathing, and though her heart _aches_ to imagine Ben stranded at work and receiving the worst news of his life, he, at least, is an adult. Peter is four and has just lost everything, and May has to spare him the pain of being alone.

(Any more burdens on his tiny shoulders, and he just might break.)

“I’ll see you there, okay? 105th precinct.”

Ben has never been any type of wordsmith, but it still makes May hurt to hear the fragile simplicity of his reply. “Okay,” he mutters, his voice a little tinny coming from the phone’s speaker.

“I love you,” she tells him, though that truth that has kept them together through thick and thin doesn’t feel like enough right now, and she hangs up to grab her keys and run out the door.

The first thing that strikes May about the version she finds of Peter in the police station is his stillness.

Mary and Richard are— _were_ —geniuses, and though Peter is hardly a little athlete, their minds put in his body created a chatterbox of a kid, always running around with a million questions about everything going on. It’s a cute, if occasionally grating, trait, but now—

Peter looks like someone reached deep inside him and plucked everything that made him the kid May knows out. His eyes are glazed, staring aimlessly at the floor, and his arms are wrapped around himself.

When May crouches down in front of him and reaches for his hand, he flinches away from her, eyes gone from unfocused to _petrified_ on a second’s notice.

May’s throat, which has been tight since getting that first phone call, makes talking hard, as do the tears burgeoning in her eyes she makes herself blink away. Ben has to be the adult, no matter how awful it is, and so does she now that she’s with Peter. She tries again, though seeing him bunched as small as he can get in the chair he’s arranged in feels like a shot to the heart.

“It’s just me, Peter, just May,” she murmurs, feeling very much like she’s trying to calm a wild animal. His fear is palpable, nearly primal, and so, _so_ wrong on someone as young as him. “You saw me last month for your mom’s birthday,” she reminds him, not sure why she’s bringing the party up but hoping the extra chatter will somehow help him. “You got her that pretty necklace she told your dad she wanted, and we had chocolate ice cream with white cake and white frosting—her favorite.”

The explanation is doing very little to help her keep her emotions in check—in fact, she nearly starts sobbing again at the realization that they’ll never have that kind of uncomplicated joy among the five of them again—but slowly, Peter unfurls himself, clearly still frightened but focused on her, for the moment.

She keeps going. “Your dad and Ben got into a fight over who could frost the cake better, and they got icing all over each other, remember? And—” She means to say more, to be strong, she really does, but she presses her lips together instead, trying not to lose it. “And I’m here, honey,” she whispers, in the end, when she can trust her voice not to give out. “I’m here, and you’re safe.”

And then she does the first thing that comes to mind and holds out her arms.

Peter stares. His eyes are enormous and wet, glistening like a beetle’s back in the fluorescents of the station, and then he throws himself off the chair and into her, knees knocking on the tile as he wraps his arms around her neck and _clings._

The embrace is clumsy and tight and not at all comfortable for either of them, but it doesn’t need to be. Peter doesn’t say a word, pressed chest to chest with May and trembling, howling earth-shattering wails into her shirt.

May and Ben have never wanted kids, never even tried, but May swears in that moment, feeling an impossibly small heartbeat pound against her own, that she will do anything to protect the boy sheltered in her arms.

(Over a decade earlier, another aunt held her boy close and prayed he would be alright, and the cycle begins again.)

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

Peter gets it, okay, he _gets it._

They have to set up base in the hotel room because it’s not like he’s going to be able to stay the night—even though Peter would die for the chance to sleep in his own bed—and they need a place to double back to in the event that the SHIELD agents surrounding the apartment declare it unsafe to enter. Fury has pulled a lot of them to make this work, though having a group of loyal agents relatively close to his hideout is probably a perk, as Iron informed Peter a few weeks back, and it’s only with their help that this is happening.

He _gets_ that this whole thing is way more dangerous than it feels, that HYDRA is undoubtedly keeping tabs on May, too, but he just wants to be back with her already. Whether she’s mad or sad or just freaks the hell out—as she has been known to do on more than one occasion—he wants to be there to see it, and hearing Steve and Sam argue whether or not to bring Steve’s shield with them when they get the all-clear to escort him to the apartment is not helping.

“You don’t need it!” Sam exclaims, gesturing to where it’s laid out on questionably clean sheets, and Peter is, admittedly, taken a little back by how strange it is to see something like _Captain-goddamn-America’s_ shield laying on a bed like some laundry that no one’s gotten to putting away yet. “Fury pulled people from God only knows where to guard this mission, and we know HYDRA is weak as shit, especially after our raid to jailbreak Iron and the kid. Even if Fury wouldn’t tear their heads off for letting Peter get hurt, there’s no way anybody’s getting through them.”

Steve sighs, clearly exasperated. “But Iron will tear _my_ head off if he finds out I didn’t do everything I could to keep him safe. I finally got him to trust me, and I don’t want to screw it up.”

It’s a little weird to be talked about like he’s not there, but in their defense, he is slinking off to the bathroom to at least pretend that he’s alone. He doesn’t dislike the two of them at all, but over the past few weeks, it’s been a lot easier to block out his homesickness, the thought of all he’s missed, with the near-constant engagement Iron provides him, from cards to sparring matches. Now, he’s almost to the goal that’s taken on a nearly dream-like quality during that time, and he needs a second to process that, even if that just means standing in a different room to listen to the two of them bicker. 

Peter can _feel_ Sam rolling his eyes. “Alright, first off, if Iron wants to rip you a new one, he can do it without needing a good reason, so I don’t know why you’re worrying about it. Second of all, it’s not what you’d call _subtle_.”

“You just said there were enough agents around to take anything HYDRA might throw at us! Why would them knowing I’m there change anything?”

“Uh, how about because attacking the random kid who managed to bust out isn’t nearly as gratifying as taking down Captain America? Come on, Steve. If anyone hates you, it’s those guys. Let’s just keep it lowkey.”

“But—”

And so the conversation continues. Peter takes a deep breath, trying to tune it out. He has his own opinion on the subject, but they can hear it once he feels a more stable. His thoughts are all over the place right now, and he wants to be collected when he finally gets to May. He knows he’ll have to tell her the story of what happened, but he doesn’t want to worry her more than he already will by default. Therefore, he has to gear up to talk normally to someone who hasn’t seen firsthand what he’s been through, to someone who won’t be expecting him to flake at the edges at something small that reminds him of what it was like to be a prisoner. Bottom line, he has to look the part of someone who’s more okay than he really is, and at the thought, he meets the eyes of his reflection.

To be completely honest, he’s tried to avoid mirrors since his rescue. It freaks him out, for one, to look at his face and see it more hollow, more pale than it should be, though he’s filled out some in SHIELD’s custody. However, more pressing than the result of being poorly tended to are the scars, but Peter planned for that. 

He’s wearing a shirt that, while not a turtleneck or something similar, comes up slightly higher than normal, and the sleeves are purposefully a little long, cutting off around mid-palm versus where his hand starts, just to be sure that it doesn’t roll down enough for her to see the result of being forcibly strapped down for months on end.

(They sedated him, yes, but until they got the needle into his skin, he fought with everything he had.)

The rest of him is covered with a simple pair of pants, socks, and shoes. There is the end of a scar peeking up from the back of his neck, but he’s purposely let his hair get a bit shaggy to cover it. May shouldn’t be looking there, anyway, or at least, Peter can’t think of a reason she would. He should have all of his bases covered, for the time being. He understands he’ll have to tell her at some point, but for their first reunion since it all happened, he can spare her his network of leathery stretches of skin he’s taken such care to cover.

It’s not ideal, not by a long shot, and he’s still coming to grips with the fact that he might have those scars for the rest of his life, spider enhancements and all, but that’s food for thought for a day that doesn’t already have his pulse pounding in apprehension.

“You’ve got this,” he mouths to himself, wary of Steve’s super hearing. “You’ve got this, and you’re going to see her again, and it’s going to be good.”

(No matter how it goes, it has to be good in comparison to the two and a half months of hell he went through beforehand.)

From the living room, the conversation seems to have stopped, and, feeling more anchored, Peter figures that means it’s a good time to make his reentry.

He unlocks the door and pokes his head out of the bathroom. “I want Steve to bring the shield,” he announces. “I’d feel better knowing he had it on hand, so if something happens, May has the best protection possible.”

And for all that Sam groans— _“I had_ just _talked him out of it, Parker.”_ —Peter knows he doesn’t actually mind. They see, as much as he tries to act like everything is fine, how scared he still feels even when he knows everything is okay, and they have no issue doing what makes him feel more secure.

Steve replies to his words with a grin, wide and more shit-eating than Peter would have believed a superhero capable of before he met one for himself, and the enormity of what they’re back in the city to do feels less daunting under its brightness when, fifteen minutes later, Sam gets the go-ahead for them to head out.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 8 YEARS AGO_

Peter gets into the car and looks _off._

May can’t put a finger on it. He doesn’t seem upset, but he’s too quiet for her tastes, not to mention she’s already a little concerned about how long it took him to get to the car. He normally bounds right up at the end of the school day, chattering about whatever “ _super cool”_ thing they did in class. Furthermore, he usually comes at her from the front of the car, not the back.

May is pulling out of the parking lot when she pieces together the meaning of that.

She can see Peter staring at his lap in the rearview mirror, but she watches him tense up as she asks, casually, “Peter, honey, did you try to walk home today?”

Her fingers drum with barely contained emotion on the steering wheel, and though she should be watching the road a little better—she slams on her brakes and mutters a curse under her breath a few seconds after posing her question—she’s more focused on the nod Peter gives.

Alarm zings violently through her veins, and she sits up a little straighter, trying very, _very_ hard not to go straight into _what were you_ thinking _Peter—you could’ve gotten hurt or kidnapped or—_

The city is huge, and the school’s not _that_ out of the way, not to mention he’s _six, Jesus Christ._

She clears her throat, her voice gone a little high. “What made you come back?” she asks, her mind running through a thousand terrible possibilities while simultaneously berating herself for not going looking sooner, but she’d thought he’d gotten held up in the library or was talking to his teacher about the day’s lessons or doing _something_ other than trying to navigate New York City on his own.

He shrugs but still doesn’t look up. “I realized I didn’t know where I was going, so I went back.”

“Alright, alright,” she breathes, more to steady herself than reassure Peter. “You can’t do that again though. There’s a lot of people running around near your school, and they could’ve tried to hurt you—do you understand that? That was really, _really_ dangerous. You _have_ to wait by the school from now on, alright?”

May’s head races, conjuring images of leering men with crooked smiles leading him away, of someone leaping out of a van and snatching him up. She’s never been a particularly religious woman, but she sends a prayer up to whoever might be listening that he realized he should turn back. He’s been getting better since what happened with his parents, sleeps through most nights now and doesn’t wake up screaming nearly as often, but there are still times like this, times where he’s a little too spacey and a little less kidlike than he should be, that May remembers the horror of what he’s gone through.

She eyes him in the mirror, his chestnut curls and dark lashes, and his words sound serious but not particularly focused. “Sorry,” he mutters, just loud enough to be heard over the traffic they’re edging through, “I won’t do it again.”

At May’s sharp stare he glances up to see, he adds to that. “Really, I won’t. I just wanted to see,” he assures her, and though her heart is still pounding, she believes him enough to feel the air going in and out of her lungs once more.

She shakes her head, gaze returning more firmly to the sea of cars they’re sitting in, and ignores the soft thumps of Peter’s feet aimlessly swinging in his seat.

She’s switching lanes when he talks again, unprompted. “May, what’s an arc reactor?”

Some asshole cuts her off, and while she flips him off as she speeds past, her voice to Peter is gentle, if bewildered. “A _what?”_ she asks, and at his fractured explanation of hearing some of the older kids talk about it at recess, May considers if she has some questions to ask about just how well Peter is doing at school come conference time.

As it turns out, she and Ben have a kid just as smart as his parents were—maybe even more so—and that means extension work, extra projects with the gifted and talented program, all sorts of things May didn’t even know were a thing.

Peter, even as stunning as his intellect is, however, remains as resolutely _nice_ as he’s always been as he grows up.

(May credits that much to Ben. She’s a good person, she knows that much, but no one who truly knows her and the fire she holds within has ever put May, kind and generous as she might be, with the word _sweet_ or even _ladylike,_ which she’s A-okay with.)

But May worries.

He’s a good kid, generally well-behaved and gets along fine with his classmates—he’s been _a joy to have in class_ from Kindergarten on—but she knows he’s not nearly as outgoing at school as he is at home, racing around with his latest LEGO creation or penning down ideas for robots or something of the like. She knows that, while he’s always clean and put-together, he doesn’t have the newest clothes or the coolest toys, and kids can figure that sort of thing out, even if they can’t put a finger on _why_ someone is different.

She’s figured that something was up for a while, but one day in second grade, he gets into the car and has the biggest, ugliest ink stain on his new shirt she’s ever seen.

“What _happened?”_ she asks, eyeing the blotch.

He shrugs, putting his backpack in his lap and setting his head on top of it.

She frowns. “Hey, we just got that—I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get that stain out,” she admits, even as she pulls forward and out of the pick-up line. “I want to know why it’s there,” she asks again, her voice edging toward severe. Peter doesn’t usually fight her on stuff like this, but it’s not like him to be so careless. She’s not mad, not really, but that there’s a problem at all is odd.

“I was just messing with a pen, and the ink spilled,” he mumbles, barely intelligible. “‘S not a big deal,” he adds.

But it is.

Peter has taken the _toaster_ apart before. A pen wouldn’t give him any trouble, but that means he’s lying, and if _he_ isn’t the reason behind the stain, someone else is.

“Who did that?” she asks, and there’s her flame sparking to life. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“It _was_ me,” he lies.

Badly.

“Peter,” she snaps, “I don’t want to hear it. Does your teacher know?”

Ben liked the woman, a Ms. Albert, when they first met her on back to school night, but May thought she was a little weak-willed. Her eyes narrow. She’s not pleased to be proven right, given the context of the situation, but—

“No.”

Hmph. She’ll hold out final judgment just yet, but Ms. Albert is on thin ice.

“Well, I’m going to send her an e-mail,” she determines, though if she has her way, there’ll be a conference with her and the other kid’s parents, too.

“May, you don’t need to do that,” he half pleads, half whines.

(The flames spike.)

“It’s not right! You had to go around all day with that on you, and—”

“It’s fine!”

“—it is _not_ fine. What were they giving you a bad time for, anyway?”

They’re at a red light, and May cranes her neck around to stare at her nephew. In the backseat, she finds his eyes filling with tears, even as he clenches his fists and looks at the floor of the car, silent.

 _“Peter,”_ she presses, and he sniffs and mumbles something she can’t make out. She glances forward to make sure the light hasn’t turned green, but this one always runs long. “I didn’t catch that,” she replies, trying to make her voice placid.

His face twists up, and so does May’s gut when he repeats himself. “Some boys got mad I wouldn’t help them with _their_ math, but I was supposed to get mine done at the same time, and they wouldn’t stop _bothering me_ , and I don’t get what’s going on right now with my stuff, and—” He cuts off as fat, crocodile tears begin to seep down his cheeks, and he scrubs at them with his sleeve as May is forced to turn back around and drive. She wishes she could tug him into a hug, but that’ll have to wait until they’re back at the apartment.

“Do you want me to tell your teacher this extension thing isn’t working out?” she asks. She still intends to weasel some names out of him, but she can go after a different facet of the larger issue while Peter is having a hard time. “Because if you do, it’s not a big deal. You’re still doing great, and you should be proud of yourself, no matter what.”

Peter’s doing math meant for middle schoolers, for heaven’s sake, but she sees him shake his head out of the corner of his eye, though his voice still comes out wobbly. “I’ll figure it out. Just, when we get back home, can you leave me alone for a little?”

May might have a temper, but with her kid, she knows when it’s important to back off.

She nods, exaggerating the motion to be sure Peter can see it from the backseat. “Of course, honey,” she promises.

That night, she makes lasagna extra cheesy, just the way he likes it, in hopes of soothing some of the leftover grossness of a bad day. But when she sends Ben in to see if he and his considerably calmer presence can help Peter through his math problems—assigned as homework since they didn’t get done in class—after he gets home from work, he discovers them already done, filled out neatly with all the proper work shown.

“It just clicked all of a sudden,” Peter explains when asked about it over dinner, looking down at his plate to direct his fork to push his food around its surface, and May is so glad something has gone right, she doesn’t catch the thin half-truth, the ghost story that’s appeared to her boy for the third time with her none the wiser.

And so Peter continues to grow, smart and nice and too good for what the world throws his way, and May and Ben confront bullies with help they don’t know is available to them from the shadows.

May doesn’t question Peter’s frequent complaints about the state of the fire escape below his room—he’s weirdly observant about certain things—and doesn’t think anything of the handful of stomach bugs Peter gets as he edges into highschool—he’s never been a particularly healthy kid.

May loves her nephew and loves her husband and loves the family the three of them have built from the leftovers of another, and then Peter watches Ben die.

(May thought she already got the worst news of her life, but once more, she is summoned to the police station to scrape her shell-shocked kid out of a chair in the reception area, to hold him as he sobs and she wishes she knew how to make everything like it was.)

Grief is not unfamiliar to either of them, however, and they push through.

“Parkers are made of strong stuff,” she reminds him the day of the funeral, tears rimming her eyes, and he nods at her, mouth clenching up as they make their way out of the apartment.

“Parkers are made of strong stuff,” she whispers to herself as she returns to work as a widow, a label that’s a scarlet letter in its own right.

And for a little, she thinks she might have found a new balance in her strange, Ben-less world, in her existence without someone to corral her spitfire. She redoes their budget, works longer hours, and when a so-called vigilante pops up on the streets of Queens, she even feels safer walking to her car after a night shift, even if she thinks that the idea of any Spider-Man existing is a turn of events almost too ludicrous to be real.

May, for a moment, finds a new happiness for herself. Then, one Wednesday night, Peter texts her to say he’s going to be studying late at Ned’s, and he never makes it home.

//

_A VEHICLE EN ROUTE TO THE PARKER APARTMENT - 2015_

“You nervous?” Sam asks, the same question from the initial ride to the city.

Peter swallows around a lump of emotion he can’t even begin to decipher and nods, unable to put his thoughts into words, and his apartment building coming into view nearly makes his heart stop.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - FOUR MONTHS AGO_

Peter doesn’t respond to her texts at ten, nor does he pick up when she calls him at ten thirty, so May calls Ned at eleven that fateful Wednesday night, asking why Peter hasn’t headed home yet.

(She would normally be angry with worry, but she has a sinking feeling in her stomach that feels more like fear than anything, and she decides she’ll cut Peter some slack this time, as long as he promises to head home when he hears Ned say she’s looking for him.)

“Uh, what?”

Ned sounds groggy, like she’s woken him up, but that doesn’t make sense. Why would he be sleeping with Peter there?

She sighs, telling herself it’s fine, that he nodded off while they were studying. “Why is Peter still over at your house, Ned? It’s eleven on a school night, and he’s not answering his phone.”

Ned does not sound nearly as bleary when his voice comes through again. “Peter’s not here. He went home after school,” he tells her, and she hears rustling that might be him sitting up in bed. “Is he—” He breaks off to take a breath, clearly coming to the same terrifying conclusion May is. “Is he not home?”

(May’s hand has begun to shake where it holds her phone to her ear.)

“No,” she admits, her voice unsteady. She’s thinking of where he could’ve gone, who to ask next, but Peter, for all she loves him, is a bit of an oddball. He met Ned once he got to middle school, and they’re thick as thieves, but if Ned doesn’t know—

“I’ll call you back, okay, honey?”

“Okay,” he responds, and his voice sounds small.

May thought death was bad. She thought she had it pretty bad, in general, but what’s worse than death is not knowing.

Peter doesn’t come home, and she goes to the police, who file him as missing, launch an investigation and promise they’ll do anything to bring him back. She puts up posters, too, but those disappear in a way she can’t explain. She plasters them everywhere she can, gives them to other people to put up. His school even gets some, but everywhere she turns, they’re ripped down or lost or blown away.

What’s worse than death is not knowing, but right up there with it is the horrifying, creeping paranoia that some higher power is trying to erase Peter right out of the picture.

(May is one woman, and why would she know to look for the darkly dressed, quick-fingered agents HYDRA sends to ensure their higher-profile project—even if he was only a local hero—stays off the radar of anyone important enough to ask the right questions?)

The police say they’re searching, but though May calls and shows up at the station again and again and _again_ , there’s no evidence, _nothing_. Her last bit of family waved goodbye to her on his way out the door to school, and God, May _knows_ loss, but this—

It’s so much harder when it’s her _kid_ , but she doesn’t give up hope.

No matter how many posters go missing, she prints more. No matter how many times the police tell her _“We’re sorry, Ms. Parker, but there have been no new developments on the case”_ , she keeps asking. No matter how long the months drag on, more empty space and silence where there used to be Peter stealing the cheese she shreds for taco night or muttering flashcards to himself to practice for AcaDec, she tells herself that Parkers are made of strong stuff.

She tells herself that Peter would never leave her so suddenly, and she is rewarded for her faith.

Four months of worrying, four months of undeniable _loneliness_ later, there’s a knock at the door, and May rises to meet it, pushing past the bone-deep weariness that never seems to abate these days.

Her palm lands on the handle, twists.

//

(Another boy and his aunt meet again, and the cycle runs through.)

//

Peter’s first thought is that May looks beautiful.

She stands in the doorway of the apartment, the hall lights making her skin look more yellow than it is, her hair is in a _mess_ of a bun, even for May, and she looks so _tired_. Next to Bucky appearing in his cell or Iron stopping his rampage the day they broke out of the HYDRA base, she’s probably the best thing Peter has ever seen.

A sob tears free of his mouth, and just like she always has, May opens her arms.

Peter only had a mom and dad for a few years. In the world’s cruelest take on insult to injury, his time with his half of their replacement got cut short, too, but May is there, and May is home.

Her hair is soft and tickles his neck. Her shampoo is as fragrant as ever and is cloying in his sensitive nose. Her arms are thinner than any of the soldiers or spies he has been around for the past month and a half, but as they lock around him, Peter knows for a fact that they are more unbreakable than any of them.

(It’s perfect.)

“May,” he breathes, and if he weren’t enhanced, he thinks how tight she’s holding him might hurt.

“Peter,” she responds, sounding utterly disbelieving. “Peter, oh my God, _Peter,”_ she repeats, and he didn’t know how much he missed hearing her say his name until then as one of her hands moves to the back of his neck and then cups his cheek, pulling back for an instant so she can search his face.

(Peter would bet money that she’s looking to rememorize every inch of it. After all, he’s doing the same thing.)

A few feet away, Sam and Steve watch the exchange. Down the hall, one of the many new neighbors May hasn’t had the energy to think much of keeps her ears trained on her radio and a hand on her gun. On the street, a half dozen agents observe the building from their places dotting the corner shops and benches nearby.

Peter knows it, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t so much as feel awkward, even as May attempts to usher him into the apartment and is faced with his guards—a living legend and the normal guy cool enough to keep up with him—who politely insist that they aren’t comfortable letting him out of their sight.

May’s hand is still in his—a tight grip, meaning she has no intention of letting go, not that Peter wants her to—and though the affection in the action is clear, she turns to him and raises a watery brow, an imitation of how things used to be and Peter hopes they will be again. “You have a lot to explain,” she threatens, eyeing what Peter knows she is processing as two extremely well-muscled men stuck, for some reason, to her nephew’s side, but Peter just nods.

“Whatever you want,” he promises.

And as they walk inside, for the first time since he felt a prick in his neck on patrol, Peter considers that he really might be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He he I took a quick pit stop this week before I let Tony rock HYDRA’s shit (for the sake of the flow of the plot, mostly), but!! Peter and May’s reunion!! I hope you guys enjoyed it and would love to know your thoughts—thank you for reading!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: graphic depictions of violence

_HYDRA BASE - 2015_

Iron can admit that he is an easily irritated person. He just _is_ , and it’s only partly because he knows for a fact that he’s smarter than most people who try to tell him what to do. That being said, he understands _why_ they have to infiltrate as quietly as possible. He suggested it, in fact, wary of the other four Soldiers, but he has the distinct urge to _destroy_ humming in his veins and is annoyed, to say the least, that he cannot let himself loose on HYDRA’s forces. The hands he clamps over guards’ mouths, even the blades he quickly draws across their throats, aren’t enough to sate the rage bubbling within him, the nearly all-consuming desire to see the group that turned him into something less than human burn.

(If he were a better, _kinder_ person, he might try to leave the grunts alive, but he isn’t, and it’s HYDRA’s fault for making him that way. He wants them to pay for it, and he hopes they rot.)

The desire to cut off as many of HYDRA’s limbs as he can reach might make someone else lose focus, but he has been trained—venomously, brutally _trained_ —to keep a mark at the forefront of his mind on an assignment. This is no different, and the thought of sending Pierce’s head, with its chillingly blue eyes and politician’s smile, rolling drives him efficiently forward.

It helps that Winter and the Widow are at his side. He is blunt and powerful, and she is sharp and graceful. They are both deadly.

Iron isn’t sure he trusts the Widow fully— _the crack of his bones, pretty, cruel faces watching it happen_ —but she is an asset to the operation. If nothing else, he believes she will carry out her orders, and he’s comfortable counting on Fury to give ones he’ll like.

If either of them is bothered by the corpses Iron doesn’t hesitate to leave on the floor—markers for where they’ve been, he muses detachedly—they don’t show it. Iron considers that they might be going along with his particular brand of ruthlessness to avoid a confrontation that could hinder the mission, especially Winter, who’s told Iron he’s trying to stray from killing in general, but then a man attempts to lunge for Iron while his back is turned, dealing with another agent.

He can hear him coming with his loud, sloppy attack and would’ve had plenty of time to take care of them both, but the Widow is there in an instant, shoving her charged baton into his back until he seizes and Iron hears his heart stop altogether.

He looks at her, and she at him.

“Thanks,” he says, and the smile she gives him in return is wicked.

(The Widow would not show emotion, even something as unmalleable as satisfaction, as a courtesy, and Iron considers that perhaps he can place more faith in her than he thought.)

“Just doing my job,” she lies, and Iron knows he is not the only one holding back for the sake of the operation.

There’s still the matter of Winter, but that question mark is erased neatly from the page with the rumble that leaves his lips and takes Iron a moment to fully decipher: “The next one’s mine.”

Briefly, Iron wonders what Peter would think of their collective lack of mercy, how they’re splitting the workload like some sort of sport. Then, he remembers that HYDRA beats the compassion out of their minions, his anger spikes, and he elects to make sure Peter never has to confront the carnage they’re willfully wreaking.

They begin to move again, three sets of footsteps muffled just as they have been taught, three bullets carving a path to the heart of the beast. As they do so, Iron gives a cursory glance to a camera in the corner, feeling pleased despite the blood crusted onto the knives he’s sheathed once more.

HYDRA has let him into their systems to suit their needs so many times Iron has lost count. The smart thing to do would be to revamp them so that Iron might at least break a sweat hacking back in, but HYDRA, frankly, is not that talented. It was child’s play to slip a virus into their network as the jet they rode in neared the drop-off point, effectively putting their cameras on the fritz while also hiding the hostile craft from HYDRA’s radar.

However easily irritated he might be, Iron can appreciate the art of being a nuisance, but even so, he’s surprised they haven’t run into more problems. Specifically, the other Soldiers. Even if HYDRA doesn’t have proof that they’re under anything more than a cyberattack, he doubts Pierce would chance being taken off guard. It’s more his style to think ahead, curb the problem before it spirals out of control, and that includes sending out an aggressively lethal patrol to make sure no intruders are snaking through the base.

Iron doesn’t believe for a moment that Pierce cares about any low ranking agents that might get cut down by intruders, but he _knows_ he won’t want a surprise attack on his life.

The absence of the four makes something under his skin prickle, but he keeps moving, not a toe out of line in the seamless trio he makes with Winter and the Widow, three weapons turned viciously against their makers.

They come to an intersection of the grimy, twisted halls, however, and with fast, muttered line of the closest the Widow gets to encouragement— _“Don’t do anything stupid and stay together.”_ —she peels off in a direction of her own, headed for HYDRA’s databases, both hard and digital, as Winter anticipated when they originally discussed the infiltration plan.

And then there are two.

Maybe thirty seconds after the Widow takes off, he and Winter come across a few guards, and while they die—not screaming, unfortunately, for the sake of subtlety—Iron sees a gleam in the eyes of the one he gets his hands on that tells him he’s right to sense that things are off.

He looks to Winter out of the corner of his eye. “You think something’s up?” he mutters, already knowing the answer. HYDRA made Iron in the image of his predecessor, after all.

“Definitely,” he replies, voice low, his head turning to search the barren space around them for a clue as to what it might be. Naturally, there are no answers to be found, and they creep forward, navigating with accuracy that Iron suspects doesn’t just come from poring over the layout of the base back at the safe house.

He tries not to think about it, along with the fact that, even if they are the lowest level of HYDRA goons, the guards are startlingly easy to take down. The prickle Iron felt before, however, grows and grows and _grows_ , and as they make a turn, he notices a beat too late that there’s a muted _beeping_ coming from the camera set into the corner.

His eyes widen in the same moment as Winter’s, and they don’t even have time to meet each others’ eyes before they’re leaping away from the explosion that shakes the very ground they stand on.

//

_BUCHAREST - 15 YEARS AGO_

The Soldier and Winter have been sent on an assassination mission. This isn’t terribly unusual, but neither of them has a handler this time. Their superiors believe they will move faster as a smaller, supernaturally deadly unit, and they are correct, even if at this very moment, they are simply leaning against a wall in a bustling marketplace, waiting for their mark to walk past.

Winter is to his right. He is wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a glove to conceal his prosthetic, and the Soldier privately wonders if he is hot. It’s the middle of the summer, after all, and he, dressed in only a tanktop and a vest beneath it to cover his light, is sweltering. It’s impractical to risk Winter overheating, being imperfect, and the Soldier’s eyes narrow, thinking of how he would correct the oversight.

(HYDRA may have a noose to lead him by, but the Soldier is under no delusions that they know better than him.)

They instruct him to work on Winter, sometimes, but fixing the odd glitch that might make his finger twitch or hand turn when it’s not supposed to is nothing. If he had his way, Winter would have cloaking technology that could mimic skin and bone, and the long sleeves would be unnecessary.

His lips twist in dissatisfaction, and Winter’s gaze pierces him, blue and surprisingly fervid for being the more subdued of the two of them. “Focus,” he snaps, blunt as ever and clearly having noticed that his attention is not on the throngs of people making their way from stall to stall.

“I am,” he lies, relieved from his muzzle he hates as much as everything to do with HYDRA for the duration of the assignment. Winter is no handler; they are equals, and that means that the Soldier can say whatever he wants to him with no repercussions as long as he doesn’t jeopardize the mission.

Winter scowls, but he doesn’t speak again, his features returning to their impenetrable cast. When the Soldier’s eyes start to wander again, he is more subtle, preferring to avoid further annoying Winter. Like him, he has been trained to only include the necessary details of an assignment in his report, but if asked about the Soldier’s performance—and the Soldier wouldn’t put it past his current handler, a beastly, conniving man—he will explain his follies without hesitation. The Soldier doesn’t begrudge him for the fact, not when he’d do the same, but it is something to be cautious of.

Then, not very far from them, _giggling_ reaches his ears.

The sound is intensely unfamiliar, and as such, it draws their mutual attention, the Soldier notes with a faint thrum of satisfaction and a glance back at Winter. They are greeted with the sight of several college-aged girls who all seem to be looking at them.

Huh.

The Soldier theoretically understands romantic attraction, but he struggles to reconcile the idea with himself. He is made to be used, to serve a purpose someone else selects for him, no matter his opinion, and it is utterly alien to think that he can be involved in such a mundane experience. Even more baffling is the inclusion of Winter, and wordlessly, their eyes slide to one another, newly united in their confusion, before returning to the girls.

They’re tittering and pushing at one another, and though the group as a whole comes closer, one girl gets shoved forward, her hair golden and eyes a shimmering emerald as she offers a nervous grin. “Uh—so, my friends and I were hanging over there, and we wanted to know if you guys had any plans right now,” she asks, boldly sparing any preamble despite her awkward start.

Her words come out in a language the Soldier is not particularly well-versed in, but unfortunately, he doesn’t trust Winter to interact with them without being overly, _suspiciously_ brusque, or at least, not without an example to follow. Thus, the Solder takes the lead, nodding with an impish smile that comes more easily than he thought it would, even if it feels plasticky on his face unused to such things.

“Sorry to disappoint, but we’re waiting for a friend,” he replies, lying through his teeth with an ease HYDRA has ingrained in every facet of his person. “Who’s asking?”

The accent on his messily formed words sends the speaker’s eyes skittering back to her friends alongside her widening grin, and the girls whisper among themselves. The Soldier could decipher their words if he chose to, but he prefers to tune them out. The experience is strange enough; he doesn’t need to know what they think of him in such an unorthodox context.

“We-ll,” the blonde drawls, leaning in with growing confidence, and it is only through years of practice controlling his reactions that he does not flinch as she lays a dainty hand on his arm, “I’m Alina. We were thinking about getting some lunch, and we thought you guys might want to join us, but we can wait for your friend and ask if he wants to come too. What are your guys’ names?”

Before the Soldier can spin another lie, a friend jumps in from the gaggle of them still hanging slightly back. “Where are you from?” she asks, eyeing the Soldier in a manner he can’t remember seeing before.

“Italy,” Winter cuts in to answer for him, the word flawless and exact. “He’s here on an exchange program. I’m from the area, though.”

He’s not as charming as the Soldier, despite his perfect inflection, but Winter has always been less flexible than him, his moldability lost in the cold.

“I’m Ivan, and that’s James,” the Soldier offers, tipping his head towards Winter. He steals his own alias from his handler—the first thing that came to mind, though it’s not a very _Italian_ name—but James—

He can’t say where that one comes from, only that it seems natural to have someone with the name at his side.

There is a moment, just one, where he might think of a room with twin, ratty beds, of a hand on his, but it dissipates, hardly noticed at all, when Alina speaks, and the Soldier ignores the strange expression that crosses Winter’s face in the corner of his eye at the cover he’s given him.

It doesn’t matter, besides. They make small talk for a few more minutes, and then they catch sight of a car with the plate they’ve been instructed to watch for and bid the girls goodbye.

Maybe in a different timeline, they could’ve indulged in something as mundane as an impromptu date, but as HYDRA’s prized Soldiers chase their quarry, those they leave behind merely sigh in disappointment, blissfully ignorant of the pain they’ve caused them without even trying.

//

_HYDRA BASE - 2015_

Iron hits the ground _hard_ , the air knocked out of his lungs despite that he tucks and rolls in an attempt to break his landing. He can’t breathe, can’t see through the debris filling the air, and as he breathes in and tastes gunpowder in the back of his throat, he’s nearly paralyzed.

He hunches over, a hand pressed to the reactor, and his chest heaves in great, shuddering gasps. He’s fine—he _knows_ he’s fine, can’t see blood or feel any of the pains HYDRA deliberately introduced to him so he’d know when he was fucked on a real assignment.

But even so—

_(The escape, the rifle, the grenade, the blowback, the cold, the restraints, the car battery, the—)_

It should be impossible for a second to contain the days-long memory of how Iron came to possess a second heart, but he experiences it all anyway. It would knock him out of commission, leave him in the same pathetic, helpless state from that day at the safe house with the freezer, but as the smoke begins to settle, Iron sees a shape with none of Winter’s grace stalking towards an unmoving mass on the ground.

It takes Iron a moment, his ears ringing with the explosion, to process, and then vengeance surges back into his limbs and leaves them more electrified than ever.

A Soldier like the ones he was expecting would never move so crudely—even their brutality is practiced, a lethal dance through the movements HYDRA taught them—but the shape _is_ a threat, and Iron isn’t about to let them hurt Winter.

His lips contort into a snarl, and he lunges.

If the satisfaction that floods him when he gets a hand on the attacker’s neck and uses the grip to throw them is a little heady, well, it’s not like Winter’s going to be bothered by it. He, as a matter of fact, is still on the ground, but Iron doesn’t have time to spare to see if he’s okay. The assailant thuds into the wall, but closer to them, Iron can see that they’re well armored, which makes things that much more difficult. Regardless, he plants himself in front of Winter, ready and more than able to protect, and is greeted for his efforts with a furious, masculine growl: “There you are, you son of a bitch. I’ve been _waiting_ for this.”

The man launches himself at him, and Iron is immediately absorbed with the surprising strength behind his blows. He’s not enhanced, but the rage he carries with him, evident in his voice alone, takes him far, as do the armored contraptions locked around his wrists that try to cudgel him into defeat. He swings anywhere he can reach, and as Iron knocks his blows away, he meticulously logs his defining traits: the black mask weathered white in the center, the similarly worn X in the black of his body armor. Despite the distinct appearance, however, he can’t match the fighter to the voice he _knows_ but can’t place, not until Iron rips one of the devices around his wrist off and ends up using the knife on its tip to cut the mask away.

The covering clatters to the ground, and though his face has visibly had a rough time of things, it’s Agent Rumlow that stares back at him.

Iron can’t stop the grin that spreads over his lips, nearly feral in its delight. “You know, I think the new look suits you,” he goads, and Rumlow throws himself at him with a shout. Behind him, he thinks, _hopes_ he sees movement—Winter getting to his feet—but he’s still rather preoccupied with Rumlow, who draws his other blade.

The agent, despite his passion, is slipping.

Where Iron has let his rage cool from something molten to a weapon he can use to push himself along, Rumlow is consumed by the emotion. He isn’t thinking of victory, only the desire to hurt, and while Iron dabbles in the latter perhaps more than he should, he would never do so as sloppily as this.

The knife jabs the wall just inches from Iron’s head, but he is, aside from annoyed that there is dust on his cheek from the impact, unperturbed. Rumlow’s moving too fast and losing precision in the process. All Iron needs is an opening, and despite his hissed words—

“If I hadn’t been forced to work with _you_ , I wouldn’t have gotten a building dropped on my face.”

—he keeps his eye on the prize. And when Rumlow draws too close, too open in his posture despite the rain of blows that Iron deflects like it’s second nature, he strikes.

It’s a long established fact that he was the weakest Soldier, physically speaking, and as a result, he learned the ways of the Widows, including how to make an enemy’s greatest mistake getting into his reach. It’s that talent combined with the sheer power in his body, even if it pales next to his counterparts, that allows him, in a single deft motion, to grab a knife from his belt and shove it through his armor and deep into his stomach.

Rumlow chokes, and Iron twists the handle, enjoying the dribble of red beginning to seep from his lips. Rumlow is nearly eye to eye with him, their faces inches apart, and it pleases Iron to no end to know the asshole can see every facet of the greedy satisfaction on his face.

The memory is faint but pressing, of him daring to call Winter _braindead_ on the way to SHIELD’s headquarters all those months ago, of Iron deciding that he’d kill him personally.

He draws the blade out and yanks the other gauntlet off Rumlow’s wrist, crouching down over his body as it sinks to ground, defeated. 

But he’s not done with him yet. 

Iron presses a harsh hand over the wound, and at the choked scream that leaves Rumlow, speaks. “Where are the other Soldiers?” he bites, every bit the interrogator HYDRA trained him to be.

Rumlow was a nice starter course but not much of a challenge, in the end. He lacked finesse, and that made him easy to dismantle. However, even dying, he merely laughs. “The others? You’re fucking crazy, smart guy.”

The nickname makes Iron’s skin _crawl_ , thinking of a time where he didn’t have a will, hardly had a soul.

Rumlow coughs, and Iron leans back so that the blood that spurts with the action doesn’t further stain his clothes. He frowns and plans to press, not fully understanding the comment, but it appears Rumlow intends to grate on his nerves until the end.

He jabs a finger at Iron’s chest, smiling lazily as his feeble life seethes over Iron’s fingers. “You wanna’ know something? I saw that kid of yours when they laid him out. I was _there_ ‘cause the same psychos who were in charge of gutting him were fixing me. I saw him _bleed_ , and it was a pretty good show.”

Iron intended to cut out his tongue as grisly retribution for his nicknames, but at the mention of Peter, the knife freezes in his hands, his mind filled with static. The thought of Rumlow seeing his kid at his most vulnerable, experiencing his personal hell and being _entertained_ , fills him with a fury so hot it glows white in his mind, but he can’t move just yet, incapable of stopping the filthy stream of words that continues to fall from Rumlow’s mangled lips.

“I dragged him in and out of his cell, sometimes, when there was no one better around to do it. And when he was tired, or when they _really_ went in on him, you know what?” He leans in, and his breath hits Iron’s skin. The intimacy of the action makes Iron feel disgust more intense than he’s ever known before, ever known he was _capable of._ If he hated him for Insight, he _loathes_ him now, but he’s not finished, his eyes glittering with anticipation for his final blow. “He screamed for _you_ to come save him, Soldier.”

Iron had almost forgotten Winter entirely in the little fiasco, but he doesn’t so much as flinch as he comes up from behind to fire a bullet into Rumlow’s forehead and pull Iron away from the resulting spray.

“That’s _enough,”_ he growls, standing above the corpse like some kind of avenging angel, and though Iron wanted to take care of Rumlow personally, he hadn’t realized the comfort in knowing that when he can’t move, Winter will come to knock him back into action.

(Iron swore he would kill Rumlow, but he finds it hard to begrudge Winter for finishing the deed in his stead.)

Iron blinks once, twice, and then he stands, his features hardened into an undeniably frightening mask that, on anyone else who looks his age, would be impossible to achieve. People who appear as young, as untainted as Iron shouldn’t be able to summon the will to shut down so completely, but there he stands, blistering with indignance and all too practiced at keeping it under a deceivingly calm facade.

Winter is looking at him, searching for any cracks, any instability, but Iron has been given impossibly more motivation by a man who died in agony, just as he deserved.

His voice comes out devoid of emotion, utterly sure and entirely unreadable in the same breath. “Let’s finish this,” he intones and walks off towards the target he has craved to eliminate from day one.

//

_BUCHAREST - 15 YEARS AGO_

There’s something of a chase to the mission, which is not entirely unusual in their line of work, but it does make things a tad more exciting.

Naturally, the man—a rocket scientist, the Soldier remembers from the file—can not outrun them, not in a car and not on foot, and while the Soldier understands desperation, he thought a man as educated as himself would be smart enough to realize HYDRA wouldn’t send anyone after him who would tire to the point of losing his trail, of letting him go.

Still, when they reach him past the leagues of government goons who attempt to guard him and die for their efforts—the sheer number of them being the reason two Soldiers were necessary at all—he begs.

 _“Please,_ I’ll pay you anything, _give_ you anything. Information, my research, please, just let me live, let me go, let me—”

The Soldier pays him no mind, forcibly manipulating his shaking hand to hold a pistol and press a finger over the trigger. They’ve been instructed to make it look like a suicide. The Soldier doesn’t understand the logic in that, not with the bodies littering the halls, but HYDRA is not nearly as smart as they think they are. He is in no position to question orders, anyway, even if he was physically capable of doing so, and he muses to some degree of amusement that his superiors might have spared some of their pocket change for a particularly skilled cleaning service.

At any rate, despite the man’s pleading, the frantic tears slipping down his cheeks, he makes him pull the trigger while Winter watches dispassionately, and when he is done, he lets the body slump to the floor so that he can step over it and towards the door.

Once, he would’ve been horrified at the sight, but when he panics on an assignment, if he is anything less than a perfectly obedient Soldier, he is punished.

It is much easier to be numb than wrestle with the guilt of what he’s done, and like the rest of his assignments—the rest he can remember, anyway—he files the events of the day mechanically away, believing the mission to be over, just like that.

As he has done dozens of times before, he reaches for his radio to signal that they are headed back to the rendezvous point. He is, by far, the more talkative of the two of them, and he’ll take what opportunity he can to speak before he is muzzled again, as he surely will be the moment he reenters the base. However, where the device is normally stored, he finds nothing but air.

The Soldier’s hand stalls. There are consequences for lost equipment, yes, but beyond the quick rationale that it must’ve fallen out in the back and forth between the vehicle they stole to chase the scientist and the armored one he hoped would save him, he realizes he has an _opportunity._

His radio has a tracker in it, so HYDRA will already know it has been lost. There would be no other reason for it to likely report that he has been in the middle of the street for an undetermined amount of time, but Winter—

Winter has a radio, tracker and all, too, and is where he should be, and they _trust_ Winter more than they ever have the Soldier.

So when he says, “I’ve lost my radio. Report that we’re heading back for extraction,” and Winter does it unthinkingly, as used as the Soldier to the routine of the gruesome tasks they carry out, they have no reason to doubt him, to go looking until he’s long gone.

The Soldier normally buries his hatred for his superiors and the horrid existence they have trapped him in from mission to mission, losing himself in files and the blood he spills on their command, but the emotion is never far, within arms reach should he ever need to remind himself that no matter how many times they wipe him, how they pound his triggers into his head, he will always have the rebellion of his thoughts to fall back on. And realizing that he could run, if only because HYDRA wouldn’t know to look for him until it was too late—

He’s not about to let that chance pass him by, but then that begs the question, what does he do with Winter?

He has every inch of the training the Soldier does and even more experience. If he comes after him, it will make things very difficult for the Soldier, but he could work around it. The logical solution, or at least what comes to mind, is to suggest splitting up on the off chance that anyone might tail them from the stir they caused in the building the scientist tried to hide in. It’s nothing they have not done before, and Iron is a very, very good liar.

He looks at Winter, meets his dead-eyed but somehow simultaneously sharp stare, and opens his mouth to give him his excuse, but—

(But the Soldier hates HYDRA more than he can say, even if he isn’t muzzled more often than not. But Winter has never been needlessly cruel, not like the others, not even when it would please his handler and make his life easier.)

The Soldier remembers his confusion at the girls’ enthusiasm, an event that already seems so distant, and he remembers that it was an exact mirror of his own.

How can he leave someone so like him to suffer—and suffer he will, when HYDRA realizes he escaped from under Winter’s watch—when he has the opportunity to set him free alongside himself? 

(The Soldier remembers the strange look on his features at the name James, too, and decides that it can’t matter, that he can’t doubt him this late in the game.)

“We’re going to take a different route back,” he announces. “I’ve studied the city, and we can move faster if we take the train. At this time of day, traffic will hinder our movement too much anywhere else.”

He has done no such thing, but Winter nods. It is not unreasonable to think that HYDRA would’ve given him a map and not Winter, what with his mind that churns faster than his superiors can keep up with, and though Winter is the eldest, he is pragmatic. He follows the Soldier in the interest of efficiency, and the Soldier mulls over how he is going to explain things when Winter catches on that he is leading them astray.

It takes ten minutes to get to that point, and what does it is the Soldier grabbing Winter’s radio and sticking it onto the back of a momentarily stalled produce truck they pass by.

Winter grabs his wrist, yanking him back when he tries to keep walking, and the Soldier thinks his heart might beat right out of his constantly throbbing chest. “What are you doing?” he snaps, gruff, though not angry. 

It’s rare that Winter is truly _upset_ with him, and he’s just giving the Soldier his _I’m-annoyed-and-might-beat-you-up-later_ glare, not his _I’m-annoyed-and-might-actually-try-to-kill-you-later_ glare. There’s a difference, and it’s mostly in the brows.

(The Soldier remembers what he needs to survive, but simple camaraderie is unusual enough to be worth memorizing, too.)

The Soldier looks him in the eye, hoping that he’s made the right choice. “We’re not going back to base,” he admits, his voice low and objectively unremarkable among the cacophony of the streets of the city. “We have a head start, but if you fight me, we’ll lose it.”

Winter blinks. The Soldier can see he’s not processing, but they don’t have _time_ for this. He presses harder.

“We’re getting out, or at least, I’m getting out, and I want to take you with me. I don’t want to do whatever they ask anymore. I don’t want to see you do it either.” 

Winter’s brow furrows, but even something as small as that, on someone of their breed, is a sign of him wavering. It’s all the Soldier needs, and he reaches out to him, using the tongue HYDRA sees as forked to bring him on board.

“You can be _more_ than this, Winter—better than this. Both of us can. Just trust me.”

He’s smaller than Winter, more vulnerable, more _weak_ to the casual observer, but they both know they are equals, even if their strengths lie in different areas, and as such—

Winter’s grip slackens on his wrist, his blue, blue eyes widening like they’re seeing the world for the first time. “You have a plan?” he asks, but though he technically poses a question, the Soldier sees the faith he has that he will receive the answer he needs.

The Soldier nods. “Yes, but we have to go now.”

Winter searches him for any sign that he might be joking, but they both know the consequences of what he’s even daring to suggest.

“Then let’s get moving,” he agrees, and so they do.

(And so they fail.)

//

_HYDRA BASE - 2015_

Rumlow’s words, dead though their speaker is, bounce around Iron’s head, his response to being asked about the four adversaries Iron has been most concerned about.

_“The others? You’re fucking crazy, smart guy.”_

Rumlow was an ass, but somehow, Iron doubts he was lying. He had no reason to, in those final moments. Everything about him was trying to get under his skin, and if he cared about a threat enough to ask after it, Rumlow would’ve played it up as much as he could if he knew anything about it.

Iron’s mind, honed from decades of thinking fast in the field, decides that means one of two things. Rumlow either didn’t have the clearance to know about the Soldiers, meaning Winter and Iron could have four hyperaggressive killing machines coming at them sooner rather than later, or they really aren’t around anymore.

Iron isn’t sure what to believe.

“You okay?” Winter asks, though his voice is soft, almost inaudible. 

They’re both moving even more quietly now, craning for the sound of beeping once more. Though he and Winter escaped basically untouched from the first explosion, save for Winter getting knocked out for a few minutes, apparently along with their comms—and unconsciousness is not nearly as disturbing as it should be to them, not after years of cyro and blind spots stretched across their memories—they would prefer to avoid a repeat incident.

“Fine,” Iron replies, and for the most part, he is. If anything, Rumlow’s taunts have given him extra strength to draw on for what he came to do, and he has no interest in denying himself the thrill of a hunt.

But then—

They’ve kept their ears out for more bombs, but the pounding of running feet isn’t unexpected either. They’re three quarters of the way to the bunker they suspect Pierce, in the event of an attack, would be taken to for protection, so they’ve had a pretty good run.

Iron’s mind flits through the mechanics of how HYDRA would try to handle the situation.

The first thing that would’ve put them on edge is the cameras going out. Then, slowly but steadily, guards wouldn’t have shown up for their new position in the rotations HYDRA keeps running day and night, and someone would’ve been sent to investigate, maybe alongside a message sent quietly through the grunts’ comms that the base is under attack. That would explain, then, the strange smugness on the face of the last guard Iron killed before they ran into the bomb. If he found some way to communicate their presence to his superiors, it would be no trouble to set the camera to destruct and, from there, dispatch an elite fighter in an attempt to finish the job.

It’s not a bad plan, but unfortunately for HYDRA, their Soldiers are trained too well to be stopped by low-level agents, especially with the base sprawled too wide and their attack mounted too suddenly for them to coalesce and find power in numbers.

Both of them reach smoothly for the assault rifles strapped to their backs. They haven’t used them thus far in favor of trying to remain undercover, but that ship has sailed if the incoming attack means anything. Now, there’s no reason not to go for efficiency, and the moment the agents turn the corner, Iron ducks behind Winter, who can somewhat use his arm as a shield, and fires before their opponents can get their fingers on their triggers.

Then, they keep moving.

Maybe Iron should feel bad for the path of destruction they cleave through the base, fully unleashed and chomping at the bit, but if he feels anything at all—and he’s not sure he does, after so long of blocking out what it feels like to kill—it’s the grim pleasure of eradicating a cog in a corrupt system.

Side by side, they make their way through the base and mercilessly stomp out any obstacles in their way, including the trembling guards standing in front of the double doors separating them from Pierce.

Iron can summon very little pity for them, and they don’t have to be scared for long, anyway.

Winter stoops to one of the bodies and removes a keycard from its breast pocket, swiping it over the scanner to the side of the doors. When it beeps contrarily, apparently not satisfied with the cardholder’s authorization level, he sighs and rips the device off the wall, and the doors swing open.

A few shots ring out, clean, clinical. Necessary deaths to clear the rest of the security around the man they can already see standing inside, the man who, if Iron had to put a name with it, seems _scared._

It’s a good look on Alexander Pierce, he decides, and in tandem with Winter, Iron strides forward to meet him.

//

_BUCHAREST - 15 YEARS AGO_

The rest of the story is fairly simple, all things considered.

The two of them make a break for the train station, the first step of many the Soldier is hodgpodging together in his mind, and as they dart through the streets, the Soldier honestly believes they can make it. They are Iron and Winter, a weapon so icy it burns, and they are more than capable of fighting through any obstacles in their way, even if they didn’t have all their supplies for the mission still on their persons, though they’re hidden under the civilian clothes they’ve been given to blend in. 

The Soldier is right to think as much, but it’s not an outside force that does them in. No, they arrive at the train station, and as their ticket to freedom comes rolling to a stop, Winter falls apart.

At first, the Soldier thinks it’s merely cold feet. What they are doing is no small task, after all. He wouldn’t have expected such nerves from Winter, true, but he doesn’t blame him, either. He looks to him at his side when he stops in his tracks and expects balled fists, maybe a clenched jaw. Instead, he finds his face gone paper white and him _shaking._

Up until that point, the Soldier had experienced nothing in their new mission but the drive to be free of his chains, the elated spite of cutting his puppet strings by hand, but in that moment, he feels fear, oily and sinister, slide down his throat and settle nauseatingly in his stomach because Winter should never, _ever_ look like that. It’s like something in the universe has fundamentally shifted at seeing someone the Soldier thought unshakable knocked off-kilter.

“Winter?” he asks, eyebrows bunched with concern.

It’s like he’s not there. Winter’s eyes don’t leave the sleek shape of the train, even as he takes a stumbling step back.

“Winter,” the Soldier pushes, looking around out of force of habit. He’s already lost time convincing Winter to break for it in the first place, and this is throwing a bit of a wrench in things, to say the least. “Winter, you have to tell me what’s going on, or we need to go. The train’s going to leave.”

“I—” he pants, voice trembling. “I—I can’t—I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t get on the train.”

No, _no._ He cannot do this. _He. Cannot. Do. This._ Not here, not now. They _have_ to go, or everything will be for nothing, and for the first time, the Soldier allows himself to think of what could happen should they be caught.

(They have to go, or they’ll wish they were the ones killed today.)

“You _have_ to get on the train,” he insists, though his voice has grown a touch ragged with trepidation. “It’s our only way out of the city, Winter, now _mo—”_

“I _can’t!”_ he erupts, and the Soldier sees a wildness he didn’t know he possessed in his panic. Around them, people are beginning to stare, and they can’t have that either.

(The Soldier thinks of that flicker, that _falter_ back with the girls at the mention of a mere name, and though the Soldier is smarter than anyone he’s ever met, he realizes he is an idiot for thinking they could escape on a whim with all the pitfalls in their minds HYDRA knows better than they do.)

He tries to make do from there, steal a car and flee, but it’s too little too late. 

The Soldier’s last memory of Winter, until he finds him in the same city over a decade later, is seeing him crumble for reasons neither of them understands, and he takes the fall for the entire operation in the hopes that he can make that break even a tiny bit easier to handle.

And for his insolence, the Soldier is punished.

They rip his heart out of his chest and make him gasp for breath like a fish out of water.

They rip his heart out of his chest and make him beg on his hands and knees to get it back.

They rip his heart out of his chest and make him apologize as his vision fades out and he truly thinks they’ll let him die.

They rip his heart out of his chest and make him put his muzzle back on before they plug it in again.

They rip his heart out of his chest and take every shred of his dignity with it, take his voice and his friend and his hope that there will ever be a future for him outside of HYDRA, but they cannot take the Soldier’s anger.

(And the anger builds and builds and _builds_ , and fifteen years later, it’s high time for it to detonate.)

//

_HYDRA BASE - 2015_

Iron meets Pierce’s eyes, oak brown on powdery blue, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t bow his head. He’s always hated him, but he’s never faced him like this before, on a level playing field. His muzzle is long gone, his book has burned, and now they are a man and the Soldier he made the mistake of creating.

Looking at the wrinkles of Pierce’s face, though, his heartbeat stuttering in fear in a stark contrast to Iron’s youth and enhancements, Iron rescinds his original assessment.

They are not on equal footing. He is physically strong and further bolstered with Winter at his side, but Pierce is old and alone— _fragile._

He takes a step forward, but Pierce speaks first, likely trying to find a handhold in a situation where he is in perhaps more danger than he has ever been before. “Soldiers,” he greets. “I wish I could say it’s good to see you alive and well.”

Winter, who walks with Iron, ignores him. “We don’t have long,” he announces. “Reinforcements will be on their way.”

“I can work with that,” Iron replies, and then, to Pierce. “Where are the other four? I thought they’d be your honor guard,” he asks, not reacting, not yet, to the easy way Pierce greets them despite his terror. The familiarity there sickens him, but before he can let him die, he needs an answer.

Pierce laughs, a brittle sound as rough as it is short. “The others? They’ve been dead for years.” He waves a hand that quavers just so in the air. “They were too aggressive, uncontrollable. They snapped one day, defied orders and killed some of our best before we were able to put them down.”

 _Put them down_ , like they are— _were_ —pets. There was no love lost between Iron and the other four—their deaths have probably made his life exponentially easier, in fact—but they were like him. They were _better_ than him as far as HYDRA’s opinion went, far more willing to follow their commands, but they built them too vicious and killed them for it.

At the very least, it explains why Rumlow was the most solid resistance they could offer and why they were collecting enhanceds, though Iron suspects that, if they don’t already, HYDRA will soon regret beating them down instead of building them up as fast as possible.

He sucks in a sharp breath, but Pierce isn’t done. He hasn’t moved, likely justifiably concerned that doing so will get him shot, and his hands remain in his pockets. They aren’t big enough to hold a weapon, however, so Iron allows himself to focus on what he’s saying, the assured drawl of his words from years of practice, even in what he has to realize are his final moments of life.

“You know, I’m a little surprised to see you two running so close together, but then again, I suppose you wouldn’t remember it well,” he muses, looking to Winter, who tightens his grip around the pistol he’s drawn. The two of them have control over the situation, but inexplicably, Iron feels something cold run up his spine as Pierce’s gaze shifts to him. “And you, of course, were only a boy when the Asset killed your parents.”

Iron’s world stops, and Pierce sees it and uses the opportunity to make his move, drawing a vial out of his pocket, a vial with a lid he goes to flip off as he raises the liquid inside to his lips.

There are a million infinities contained in the time it takes the motion to pass, a million universes that were kinder, that didn’t make Iron so hard, that gave him a _life_ instead of an existence, but there is a catch to stealing a boy before he can become a man on his own, and it is this: there is potential curled tightly inside Iron for something good, and it has only grown over the years of shocks and pain. However, that boy who has been locked away and hurt, for all his good, is so very, very _angry_ and has been waiting to explode for as long as he can remember.

A guttural sound summoned from the depths of Iron’s being parts his lips in a snarl, and before Pierce can get the poison to his tongue and grant himself the mercy of a painless death, he pounces, knocking him to the floor and sending the vial rolling.

Iron froze with Rumlow, but the boy long-buried within him wants revenge against the man who stole _everything_ from him and won’t let it be taken from him, won’t allow the man to go that easily.

 _“Coward,”_ he hisses, and as Pierce’s eyes widen, his fist crashes into his face, a brutal, cruel action that slams his head back into the floor with a _crack._

(Iron does not remember, but it’s one of the same positions he put Peter in when he was forced to fight him, and _oh_ have the tables turned in the best possible way.)

He lands a couple more hits, relishes the blood spurting from Pierce’s nose, his lip, but as his fist goes down once more, Winter catches it. On instinct, he goes to pull away, but he can’t break free from his grip, which makes him pause. His eyes snap to Winter, demanding an explanation for the interruption with them alone, though he keeps Pierce pinned and spluttering for breath on the ground.

“We don’t have time. It’s like you said—let’s finish this.”

The thing is, Iron _knows_ he’s right, but he still wants to keep going, make Pierce feel an _ounce_ of the agony he has been through over the decades HYDRA has had him, has _ruined_ him and made him this heartless _thing._ Iron stares down at Pierce, sees the dazedness of his eyes that have overseen so many of the horrors in his past, and still, he speaks, his voice coming out cracked, so frail for someone who has caused him such pain.

“I selected you, Soldier, convinced the rest of them to pay up. I made you unbreakable. I made you _Iron,_ and you should be grateful,” he gasps, blood etched in the corner of his lips, and the worst part is Iron knows he thinks what he’s saying is true.

Pierce, with all his twisted years in power, genuinely believes that a seventeen-year-old boy—an age Iron has calculated in the long hours at the safe house, nursing his hatred—was _bettered_ by his involvement, and Iron is overwhelmed with revulsion at everything HYDRA is, at everything they have made him be, at all his horrible names they bestowed upon him. 

Under Winter’s careful eye, he grabs a knife and leans in, making sure that Pierce, even after taking a beating, can hear every word he enunciates.

“My name is _Tony,”_ he spits, and then, he draws the blade across his throat.

(Alexander Pierce dies, and Tony Stark is born again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy!! Shit!! This is a monster of a chapter (the average chapter for this fic is around 5k, and this is over 8k), but it’s easily one of my favorites—and not just because I got to use a line I wrote all the way back in March in it. This chapter also pushes the word count on this fic to over 100k which!! is Mindblowing for me. When I started this project way back at the start of quarantine, I never thought it would get this long, so thank you to anyone who has encouraged me along the way.
> 
> I also have to give a specific thank you/shout out to Dandy_Possum who commented on chapter two, around when I first alluded to the fact that Bucky and Tony had tried to run from HYDRA before, asking if I would ever write out Bucky and Tony’s escape attempt in Bucharest! I wasn’t originally planning on it, but their comment intrigued me and is the reason half of this chapter exists!!
> 
> If you have the time, I’d love to hear your guys’ thoughts!! Comments make my day, and, as always, thank you to anyone who even takes the time to read this fic. It means the world to me. <3


	19. Chapter 19

_A JET EN ROUTE TO NEW YORK CITY - 2015_  


In the wake of Pierce’s death, the world had felt . . . shifted.

Winter, at least, seemed to sense it, and as he drew away from the corpse, he reached out to him, placing a hand on his arm. “Iron—”

“Tony.”

Winter blinked.

“The Soldier, the _Iron_ Soldier—they made me all that, but I’m not made of metal. I’m human. They can’t take that from me anymore. I’m going to be Tony Stark again. It’s been too long since the world—” he shook his head, amending his choice of words, “—since _I’ve_ seen him. And you—” He looked to him then, blood drying on his hands. “You have the others call you Bucky, right?”

A nod, slow and a bit unsure, and Tony smiled, a much gentler thing than anything he’d shown thus far in the mission.

“Bucky and Tony. It rolls right off the tongue. Loads better than being named after inanimate stuff,” he insisted, and though Bucky relaxed a little, he didn’t return the expression.

“Alright then, Tony. Let’s head back before we get swamped here,” he suggested, and so they had—just not before Tony got the momento he rolls between his fingers now, feeling the hum of the jet beneath his body as it cuts through the air.

When he tackled Pierce, he didn’t manage to get the cap off the poison he tried to down, nor did the vial it was in break when it hit the floor, and as a result, Tony admires the milky sheen of the liquid sloshing in its container before tucking it into one of the many pockets on a fresh set of tactical gear.

Bucky doesn’t know it yet, but while the world has shifted, Tony would like to see it set properly on its axis. To do that, there’s another wrong he has to right, and he sees no reason that can’t happen on their route to meet up with Peter. It’s on the way, really, and Tony is nothing if not efficient.

But Bucky is off, and Tony needs him functioning at his best for what he has planned.

To his credit, he waits for Natasha—her face was interesting, too, hearing him use her name for the first time—to go mess with the files she’s acquired before he starts prodding, having set the jet on autopilot.

“What gives?” he asks, tactful as ever.

Bucky shrugs and doesn’t meet his eyes, and Tony feels like someone’s pulled the rug from beneath his feet. Bucky never lies to him, never hesitates to give him a piece of his vocal and occasionally vulgar mind, so something important is afoot.

It bothers Tony more than he’d care to say that, for the life of him, he doesn’t know what, so he keeps pressing.

“Come on—tell me,” he insists, nudging his knee into Bucky’s from where they’re seated next to each other. He’s expecting some griping, maybe a swat to his arm, but when Bucky looks up, his eyes are fraught with—

Well, Tony doesn’t know. It’s sharp and pained all at once, maybe even gutting, but he can’t place it. He can recognize sadness, anger, hate, but this isn’t any of them, despite the connections he draws between the facets of the expression Bucky’s making to what he knows. It’s not until he speaks that he’s able to decipher what’s bothering him.

“What Pierce said about your parents, I—”

He trails off, and Tony thinks back to the conversation, thinks of the ton of bricks he felt hit him just before Pierce tried to take the easy way out and spurred him into action regardless. It’s impressive, honestly, that he was able to forget something so grisly at the drop of a hat, especially after HYDRA has beat the necessity of paying attention to detail into him.

The emotion engraved into every line of Bucky’s face and all but bleeding from his eyes is _guilt_ , and while Tony isn’t used to seeing it on others, he’s intimately familiar with the feeling in himself.

(It strikes him then, how oddly similar Pierce’s accusation would make his and Peter’s lives if it were true.)

He shakes his head, unconvinced. “Look, he knew he was going to die if I got my hands on him, that I wouldn’t make it easy. He was just gunning for a way to distract us, and—”

“I remember it.”

Oh.

Tony swallows around nothing. Until now, he didn’t doubt for a second that Pierce was bluffing, but this changes things. He’s not sure how he feels about that, though. “You do?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically subdued, and it seems as though he hears the words from someplace outside of his body.

Bucky nods, twiddling his fingers. The motion strikes Tony as inherently wrong. Bucky might be unsure, agitated, but he’s never seen him so outwardly _rattled._ “Not perfectly, but yeah. The license plate I was waiting for, the crash, their—”

“Stop— _stop,”_ Tony cuts him off. He knows how horrible it is to think about, all the faces of those unfortunate enough to fall in HYDRA’s line of fire. “I believe you. You don’t have to talk about it, put yourself through it again.”

Vaguely, he can visualize the people Bucky killed. He remembers the pictures he saw of them on the internet, sure, and on one side of things, there’s lullabies in soothing Italian, blue eyes and a gentle touch where his mother’s face should be. Then, there’s the yelling from the video Tony watched to fix the arc reactor, a familiar stinging of his cheek, even the burn of alcohol coursing down his throat in place of distinct memories of Howard. Given time, deliberation, he might remember and think more of the people who gave him life than their essentials.

But right now, he doesn’t, and instead, they fall in with the rest of what HYDRA’s stolen from him; except with them, HYDRA was cruel enough to involve Bucky.

The two of them have never shared kind touches, assuming they’ve been allowed physical contact with one another at all. Their relationship is worn in a trail of fast parries and cutting jabs while their handlers watched, but for the thousandth time, Tony reminds himself that it’s not like that anymore, that it never will be again. 

Still, when he reaches for his organic hand, the motion is stiff.

Bucky’s knuckles are corded with tension, thick in the bone there and casting shadows between them, but Tony squeezes, reasoning that if it would be alright to do with Peter, he can do it with someone he’s known for years longer than him.

“You couldn’t have stopped it,” he assures him, and Bucky immediately shakes his head, his hair—still long but much better cared for than with HYDRA—flopping with the motion.

“I kill—”

 _“I_ don’t know why you’re trying to argue with me about it. I’m better with words, anyway, and I _know_ what it was like. Even if you had known they were anything more than the average mission, you wouldn’t have had any way to stop it. If you had argued, they would’ve put you down for a wipe or whipped out your triggers.”

Bucky tries to pull away from the clasp of their hands in indignation, but Tony holds tight, even as he spits out more reasoning to use against himself. “I got the serum for them. _I’m_ the reason they had any reason to kidnap you. _I’m_ the reason you’re like—like _this,”_ he says helplessly, and it’s not an insult, not really. Tony knows what he means, and it’s not a personal slight by any means, just the fact of what’s happened to the both of them, how terrible it is.

(Tony knows what it’s like to be in Bucky’s position, but he now understands Peter’s frustration when the same conversation passed between the two of them.)

Tony shrugs, but his gaze is immovable. “Yeah, you did, but you came back for me, even when you didn’t have to, got Peter, too. When you had the option, you chose good. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters. We’re going to do better now that we have the chance.”

He stares directly at Bucky, nearly daring him to defy him, and though some of the uncertainty leaves him, the guilt is there along with trepidation, though Tony doesn’t understand why. Or at least, he doesn’t understand until Bucky squeezes his hand back, and asks very, very quietly, “Do you still trust me?”

And Tony, who understands the fear of rejection, the fear of messing up and not being forgiven because he knows it in the shape of brown curls and beatings he had no say in, nods without a moment’s hesitation. “Always,” he swears. “I know you, and you know me. Nothing anyone says can change that.”

Bucky stares at him for a long second before grabbing his other hand, the metal cool on Tony’s skin, and without saying anything, having chipped away a piece of their past torture, the two of them feel a little more whole.

//

_A JET EN ROUTE TO NEW YORK CITY - 20 MINUTES LATER_

“You could’ve _mentioned_ you found files on Peter,” Iron—no, _Tony_ gripes, thumbing through the stack of papers Natasha has semi-belatedly provided him.

“I just did,” she replies crisply, though as he watches her, Bucky gets the sense that something more is up. She’s distracting him, but Bucky can’t figure out why just yet. “Consider yourself lucky I let them go to you instead of turning them over to Fury first. He’s picky about who can see what information, and if he thought any of that would make you more difficult to wrangle than normal, you wouldn’t have seen it at all.”

Tony rolls his eyes, but his response is lacking heat, which is a dead giveaway that he’s not as irritated as he would seem to the casual observer. “Thank you for your consideration, then,” he mutters, not looking up.

Natasha hums, clearly unbothered. Bucky still hasn’t figured out her angle. With her absurd amount of espionage training, that’s not surprising, but it’s still annoying. He’s used to being able to crack people’s motivations wide open by taking a glance at how they handle themselves, but as much as she pretends to fall in line with SHIELD, Natasha hardly makes things easy for those around her.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wonder much longer. As Tony grows increasingly absorbed in the reports Natasha uncovered—brows knitting, face darkening—Natasha tips her head toward the back of the jet in an obvious indication that Bucky’s meant to follow her.

He frowns. If she found something that involved for Tony, he can only imagine what she might have that would interest him, but he’s a smart guy and knows better than to ignore her.

He rises, starting after her, and when they’re out of Tony’s eyesight, she reaches into a stack of papers—Bucky doesn’t know how she got as many as she did but isn’t going to question it—and filches out a journal made of red leather, one with a black star on its front.

On reflex, his features slacken, his shoulders rolling back so that he can stand at attention despite how he cringes inwardly at the sight, and then Natasha holds it out to him.

It’s not that Bucky doesn’t trust her. He does, truly. He wouldn’t leave himself alone with her if he didn’t, but while he hardly turns back into the Soldier at the sight of his trigger words, the urge to submit is sharp and pressing, a knife gouging into his back as if to say _go forward instead of fighting back—it’s not worth the pain._

“Take it,” she insists, her voice quiet and likely unheard by Tony with the sound of the engine to mask it.

Bucky’s metal arm rises to do as she suggests, but he can’t stop himself from looking around, searching for someone waiting to jump out and punish him for breaking the rules. His sense of touch is, for obvious reasons, muffled in that hand, but he gets the faint sense, thanks to Tony’s modifications, that the surface of the book is supple, well-crafted, far too enduring for comfort considering it contains what HYDRA wielded like a weapon to make sure he did their bidding.

 _(Only_ their bidding.)

He stares at the star on the journal but can’t bring himself to open it, is too scared to face what lies on the pages.

He glances to Natasha, a pitstop in the path his eyes make as they sweep the area again. “Did you—”

“Look?”

He nods.

“No. I didn’t think it was mine to see, especially after how Iron reacted to his when we broke him and the kid out.”

She’s right, and the observation shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does. However, the thought that she would deny the nature HYDRA pounded into her—to excavate, to discover any and all weakness and catalogue it for later use—is definitely _something._

(Bucky, even after the months he’s spent with her and Steve and Sam, just isn’t used to people caring enough to watch his back, to even having people around him that could.)

He’s not sure how to respond to that—he doesn’t want to know where she found his words, how she got her hands on them—so he dodges the underlying intensity of the admission by picking on the least pressing part of it.

“He’s going by Tony now, actually.”

“Tony?” she asks, raising a brow, perplexed, though by what, Bucky doesn’t know. Does she think the name is random?

“Tony Stark,” he loosely elaborates, explaining what he assumes is common knowledge and sliding the book beneath his tactical vest like Tony kept his before he destroyed it. Bucky’ll have to invite him to the same event, but he’ll think about that later.

He kind of thought Tony would’ve said something to the others—he found out weeks ago, for Christ’s sake—but other than the debriefing Bucky knows he gave Fury, the rest of them must have been left out of the loop, judging by the widening of Natasha’s jade, normally unflappable gaze.

“Thanks for getting it for me,” he tells her, walking back to see what Tony’s found in the files she gave him.

His words are something he thinks of often, the fact that someone could find them and make him dance to their whim, and it’s a greater comfort than he van express to know that they’re out of HYDRA’s grasp.

He’s so occupied with that relief, in fact, he doesn’t see the gears turning in Natasha’s mind as he treads back off the way he came, processing the magnitude of what he’s just told her.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

They take the jet to a SHIELD-owned airstrip just outside the city, and when they dismount, there are two cars, sleek and shiny, waiting for them.

(Privately, something in Tony stirs with unreasonable excitement at the sight, but he shoves that part down with some reluctance.)

It was always part of the plan that Natasha would split off from them and perform a more intense sweep of the area around Peter’s building while they headed straight to him and his aunt to further beef up his guard, and that works just fine for Tony. He sees her off with a tight grin as he loads his and Winter’s gear into a lower hatch built into the trunk, and she fixes him with a look similar to the one she gave them when they did the same thing in the HYDRA base— _“Don’t do anything stupid,”_ it threatens once more.

In Natasha’s defense, she has good reason to suspect that he’s not quite finished with his revenge. However, his plan isn’t dumb, not with Bucky at his side. They’ve taken out politicians with special forces flanking them at all sides. A businessman won’t be anything new. Even if his tech is a touch more advanced than the average mark, it’s nothing Tony isn’t capable of dismantling.

She steps into her own car, saying nothing about the files he has kindly not handed back to her.

(The information contained within them quietly stokes the anger that’s yet to be entirely abated in him, but, he placates himself, that’s a work in progress soon to come to completion.)

He watches her speed off, and then he shuts down Bucky’s attempt to get into the driver’s seat, shaking his head and slipping in front of him before he can reach the door. “I have a different route in mind,” he tells him, and though Bucky raises a brow, he doesn’t question it, not until they’re well into Manhattan and drawing closer to a building—and more importantly, the person in charge of it—that makes Tony’s hands clench on the wheel.

“What are we doing?” he asks, not angry, not even annoyed, just curious.

Tony smiles, a grim, humorless thing. “Don’t tell Fury, but we’re making a pit stop to go after the other guy on my shitlist,” he admits. “If word gets out that Pierce is dead, he might start watching his back a little more closely. I don’t want to deal with that, so we’re taking care of it now,” he continues matter-of-factly.

He doesn’t want to deal with the extra security, but he also knows exactly how his target is going to die.

(His memories might be hazy, but hearing Pierce brag about his decision to invest in him has jostled a few things loose, including the last image the boy saw that night he fell asleep on the couch.)

Tony can see their destination looming down the street, and he makes a semi-illegal turn to reach a parking spot, ignoring the meter. If they get towed, assuming this goes as it should, he’ll eventually have the money to fix it, and until then, he hasn’t pissed Fury off in any major way in a few weeks—the man is long due a super soldier-induced headache, and that’s just the way it is.

So, he parks, and then he grabs a burner phone from one of his pockets.

“What’s that for?” Bucky asks, head tipped back to stare at the ceiling of the car.

Tony hums. “Getting a look at Stark Industries’s security systems. I’m sure they’re nothing I can’t get around, but I want to get a feel for things.”

“You didn’t plan this?”

“Things started coming together when we saw Pierce,” he admits, humming as he begins to disable the cameras along the route he’s planning on taking. He’ll have to override the keycode on the back door he’s planning on slipping through, too, but that can wait until they’re at the building. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” he teases, though he feels some stiffness come into his still-moving fingers at the idea.

He can’t do this without Bucky, can’t face his past, even though he knows his target can’t be any more dangerous than Pierce. It’s a matter of tricking his heart into believing what his mind knows, and Bucky’s stoic, strong figure at his side helps enormously with that.

“I’m not letting you do this alone,” he assures him, though Tony notes he doesn’t say anything about his own feelings about the mission.

His fingers whisk across the screen, setting off a handful of alarms across the building to occupy security.

It’s a weekday—simple, unassuming, and perfect for Obadiah Stane’s death.

(Tony won’t let him go out in some blaze of glory. He will not be martyred, not be made into a victim, and no one will see it coming, including him.)

Tony always has had a bit of a flair for the dramatic.

“Thank you,” he mutters, almost inaudibly, and Bucky nods.

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

Tony isn’t sure what he expected. The internet tells him Stark Industries is a behemoth of a company that, while specializing in weapons manufacturing, is unparalleled in its top of the line, cutting-edge tech. However, the internet hasn’t seen what a Stark can do since—according to the research Tony’s all but branded into his mind—the very beginning of 1992.

Part of him says he shouldn’t be too cocky, that it will blind him to potential threats, but it’s _pitifully_ easy to infiltrate the building he knows Stane is currently residing in—on the 62nd floor, to be precise.

He discovered that bit of information while Bucky was talking to Natasha and after he was done examining the files she gave him, but he’s trying not to think about those. When he has Stane where he wants him, he can allow that wave of emotion to take him under and scrape him up on the ocean floor. Until then, he has to brave the current and make sure things run smoothly, but like it always has, the single-mindedness of a mission suits both of them. True, they are more than what HYDRA made them, but that does not mean they can’t twist the skills they’ve made the mistake of outfitting them with for their own benefit.

In Tony’s defense, it should not be as easy as it is to pass off their tactical gear as the uniforms of particularly skilled security guards. They’re naturally a little too sharp to fit in civilian spaces, but with a purposeful slouch of their shoulders, a drag of their feet, they fall in properly and aren’t questioned by the few employees they run into—mostly low-level ones, interns and desk-workers and the like—on the path Tony takes.

“How do you know where we’re going?”

Tony resists the urge to roll his eyes. He _tries_ , on occasion, not to be too curt, but really? “Who do you think I am?” he asks. “I’ve been looking at the floorplan since I found out they set up a second facility in New York. I memorized it, calculated the most discreet route, and we happened to be in the area.”

 _And Tony is angry and not quite satisfied with the outlet he already got to let that out,_ but Bucky doesn’t need to know quite that much.

Bucky snorts. “Figures,” he retorts dryly, and that’s that.

They turn a few corners, and when they get into an elevator headed for Stane’s floor, Tony discloses the rest of his plan. It’s not too difficult, really. The most pressing thing he needs is time, though how he’s going to end things won’t take too long; he just wants Stane to know exactly who is wiping him off the map and, maybe more importantly, _why._

“He has a personal assistant—Virginia Potts. I need you to get her off the scene before she sees too much and keep anyone from coming into his office. I’ve already shorted out the cameras inside.”

Tony wouldn’t kill Virginia for bearing witness to Stane’s death—that’s a very HYDRA thing to do, anyway—but he has _plans_ for the company he’s going to leave without its most prominent representative. Moreover, he’s read the woman’s resume and thinks she could be _extremely_ useful, but it might be hard to establish a healthy professional relationship if she knows off the bat that he killed her old boss. Ergo, it’d probably be best to get her out of the way.

Bucky nods. “I can do that. How long are you gonna’ take?”

Tony shrugs, watching the red numbers of the counter near the top of the elevator tick up as they rise into the skyline. “Couldn’t tell you. I’ll come get you when I’m done though, and we’ll make our way out,” he assures him, feeling a strange mixture of satisfaction, anticipation, and fury surge through his veins as they draw near their stop and the elevator slows. “I won’t take too long though,” he promises, and a beat later, the doors open, revealing an empty lobby they step into. “I don’t want to keep Peter waiting.”

//

Tony Stark walks into the office that should’ve always been his while his partner in crime locks a very exasperated woman in a boardroom she’s preparing for her boss’s meeting that afternoon, and he finds what he’s looking for almost instantly.

Obie was always old fashioned, and he reaches for his favorite drink he still keeps on a bar cart off to the side, the liquor he remembers sitting on his mother’s coffee table before he was ripped apart and molded back into a cruel, misshapen tool for others to use.

Tony pours a glass of whiskey for the man he once considered a second father, and he waits.

//

Tony greets Stane sitting in the chair behind his desk.

It’s perfect, utterly disrespectful of his position and simultaneously telling of Tony’s heritage, and the first thing the man does when he enters his office is balk.

Tony studies him, something he’s broken down to a science after years of analyzing and eliminating marks.

First, there is physical appearance. Stane is wearing a crisp, black suit with a patterned, crimson tie, all perfectly ironed and cleaned. His shoes are leather, inky and structured, and Tony could hear the sound they make on the polished floors of the Tower the moment he stepped off the elevator. What hair is left on his face is a striking white, and his eyes are a cool, impersonal blue.

Then comes demeanor. Stane holds himself like a man used to being revered, broad-shouldered and imposing with his presence alone, his brows severe and thunderous on his creased face.

Tony stares him down, defiance and rage sparking in a deadly dance in the dark expanse of his eyes.

He knew he was coming, both from hacking into SI’s servers to take a look at Virginia Potts’s schedule and monitoring the feed from their security cameras. He had a plan in case Stane outpaced him on the way to his office, but it doesn’t matter now, not when it’s one thing to reasonably know who he is going to face and another to be in a room with him.

“Hey, Obie,” Tony begins, one leg extended with the other crossed over it in faux-casualness. “Long time, no see.”

Stane blinks, frozen in his steps. Tony can see his mind working behind the ice in his gaze, but he doesn’t realize what’s happening—not yet, not entirely.

He gives him a helpful shove towards the right conclusion. “Haven’t caught up since, what, January of ‘92?”

Stane pales. Like with Pierce, Tony finds that fear suits him.

(Men with power love seeing it respected, but when it isn’t, they fall apart embarrassingly fast.)

He tries to edge back towards the door, and Tony pulls a gun, aiming squarely at Stane’s forehead. It wouldn’t be the ideal death, but Tony would take mediocrity over Stane’s escape any day.

“Take another step—see what happens,” he threatens.

He watches Stane swallow, hears his breathing pick up. “They said you died,” he mutters in disbelief.

Tony’s hand is steady in the air, his finger staunch on the trigger. “As far as I’m concerned, I did. You get the new model, instead. Thoughts? I hope I’m not disappointing. Probably not as flashy as a couple billion, though.”

“Tony—”

He’s trying to placate him, even his tone slipping into the soothing thing he used to try on him that now just reads as patronizing, and it only serves to make Tony angrier.  
  


“You _sold_ me. I was seventeen, the son of your _best friend_. Why would you? How _could_ you?” he bites out.

Stane looks distinctly like he’s been backed into a corner, and even as he speaks, words thin, his eyes dart to the cameras in the corner of the room, likely wondering where his security guards are. Tony decides to let him wonder.

“See it my way, Tony—be _reasonable._ You were a disaster of an heir, too immature, reckless. The company never would’ve accepted you, even if you had things together after your parents passed. You would’ve gotten locked out, eventually. It’s not personal, really. I just wanted to start the game over before things got too messy.”

“You never gave me a chance to play,” he snaps, the bitterness in the words drilling through the distance between the two of them to break Stane’s skin.

It’s a strange mixture of condescension and fear pushing Stane forward, and Tony hates him, even more than he ever hated Pierce. 

“You were just a boy, Tony. I was trying to spare you from the worst of it.”

(He was just a boy.)

Tony laughs, an ugly, ragged exclamation. _“Spare me?”_ he mocks, his lips twisted in a garish sneer. “Do you know the things they did to a boy? That they’ve done more than once?”

Because this isn’t just about him. HYDRA has a cycle they started by buying a boy and turning him into a Soldier, and according to the files Natasha provided him, had Bucky not come for him and Peter, they would’ve gotten another in the shape of a spider.

(He was just a boy, and so is Peter.)

Tony refuses to let the pattern repeat, and that means erasing one of the key players that set it in motion.

Stane tries to talk down to him, but he’s not a child looking for comfort anymore. No, that blind trust has been butchered out of him, and now Stane’s going to pay the price for his hand in that. “Tony, please, calm—”

“Calm down?” he fills in the blank, voice gone horribly, unforgivingly cold. “Tell you what, _Obie,”_ he spits, using his name as liberally as Stane somehow feels he has the right to use his. He stands, the chair spinning with the ghost of his presence, and motions to the whiskey he’s arranged in the center of the polished mahogany of the desk. “I’ll give you the option to make it quick.”

He pulls out the vial Pierce tried to use with his free hand, allowing Stane to see the lethal cloudiness of the liquid inside before he dumps it into the drink. He doesn’t know what the poison is, doesn’t need to. Pierce wouldn’t have wanted to suffer. Whatever it is, it will be painless and swift, far more merciful than a Soldier coming for revenge.

He lifts the glass, holding it out to Stane. “There’s no one coming for you, not even Miss Potts. The cameras are out on this floor and the ones directly above and below it. If you try to make a break for it, I’ll shoot you so that you can’t run and drag you back in here to draw things out.” He smiles, a sinuous, chilling expression on his too-young features. “As much as I’m sure you’re interested in seeing everything HYDRA taught me about torture, I’ve been kind enough to provide a second option. The poison in there won’t hurt, won’t even be slow.” And then because he just can’t resist, “That’s _sparing_ someone, in case you were wondering.”

Stane meets his eyes, and though he’s silent, Tony watches him weigh his options through his fright—disgrace versus dignity, agony versus ease. Tony would be okay with either, wouldn’t mind seeing Stane suffer, but there’s a certain poetry to the latter option.

He hasn’t lowered his gun, and he thinks it adds to the weight of his promise, the last piece he gives to Stane to consider. “You’re dead,” he swears. “You’re alone, and thanks to you, I know how to kill. You have no way out, so you make the choice.”

(Tony wasn’t even lucky enough to receive that much.)

Nearly twenty-five years ago, Tony leaned on Stane’s shoulder for comfort and was fooled by his illusion of affection. Now, there are no lies between the two of them, and he watches hate, pure and vile, harden on Stane’s face as he reaches forward, takes the liquor from Tony’s fingertips, and raises it to his lips, the man who began the process of his ruin accepting his defeat.

Before a minute is up, the crystal of the glass is shattered on the ground, and Tony steps remorselessly over the corpse on the floor to find Bucky and make his way back to his kid.

(Hours later, when the news breaks that Stark Industries is lacking a CEO once more, James Rhodes, never quite having enjoyed Obadiah himself, can’t muster much grief for his best friend’s replacement.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck Obadiah. Send tweet.


	20. Chapter 20

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_ **  
**

Peter knows Iron is doing _something_ when Natasha gets to his apartment first because, to put it simply, that’s not part of the plan. If anything, Natasha should be fashionably late, which is a phrase Peter heard Iron use in front of Fury as they were planning the operation probably just to see his face.

(Fury was not pleased, but that’s a story for another time.)

Bottom line is, May will hardly let him out of her sight to go to the bathroom—which, fair—but Natasha knocks on the door and is let in without Iron or Bucky in sight, which creates more than a few questions. He wants to ask, but he doesn’t want to freak May out. Therefore, he’s sitting and trying to act like nothing is wrong, but he’s a bad liar to begin with, as is Steve.

They make it fifteen minutes before May eyes the four of them, seated in varying positions around the living room that feels much smaller with someone as muscle-y as Steve sitting in it, and calls them out. “What’s wrong?” she asks, eyeing Peter specifically because she knows he’ll crumble under the weight of her inquiry.

He looks down and to the side. He already knows that won’t help him any—it certainly doesn’t with Iron, and May is even more perceptive about his mannerisms—but he has to try. He twiddles his fingers. “Um—nothing,” he tries. “We’re just waiting on Iron and Bucky to show up.”

 _And they’re really,_ really _late._

_“Peter.”_

Oh no, that’s her no bullshit voice.

“That’s all!” he insists futilely, looking up to meet her eyes in an attempt to prove his point and seem at least a tiny bit more like he might be telling the truth.

She raises her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed, and the look she levels the occupants of the room with makes them squirm, even Natasha, though the most she does is sit up a little straighter. It’s still the most unnerved Peter’s ever seen someone make her in a non-combative situation, which, _yeesh._

“That’s all? Like how those times you stayed out late were because you were at Ned’s? Or when you happened to choose to walk home one day?”

His story with Iron is long, convoluted, and involves his alter-ego, and while May’s taken it fairly well, all things considered, Peter wishes there was some way to tell it without giving her _quite_ this much ammunition for the average argument.

“Um—yeah?”

If looks could kill, Peter would be six feet under, and he wilts a little, trying to melt into the couch cushions. It’s not a very effective escape method, especially because May is literally right next to him, but in Peter’s defense, it’s hard to mask the panic he feels at Iron potentially having run into trouble.

Iron promised not to leave without a goodbye, Peter reminds himself; he’s more than capable of protecting himself. He even has Bucky at his side, and both of them can kill someone faster than Peter could process.

That doesn’t change the fact that Peter has a spectacularly bad track record of keeping those he loves alive, and he remembers all the taunts the doctors had for him when he panicked, made their jobs difficult and was punished for it.

_(“The Solider is ours.”_

_“The Soldier isn’t coming for you.”_

_“The Soldier doesn’t care about lab rats.”_

_“The Soldier is being recalibrated. He’s forgotten all about you.”_

_“The Soldier is under our control, so you have no hope of escape. Best to behave and make your life easier, then, isn’t it?”)_

Peter hates his memories of the doctors.

His eyes shift to a nearby lamp, wishing the glow of it was more blue, more circular, but thankfully, May eases off of him and moves on to everyone else.

“Someone tell me what’s going on. _Now.”_

Her voice isn’t particularly loud, but the demand is clear, steel imbued in every syllable.

“Things have gone a little off plan,” Natasha admits measuredly. 

Peter’s glad it’s her that’s biting the bullet. He likes Steve, likes Sam, but Natasha’s tact is on a whole other level than theirs, calculated and practiced from years of missions she doesn’t discuss with Peter but he knows about anyway because Iron gets more loose-lipped the longer he’s away from HYDRA.

“Off plan?” May asks, and a fierce undercurrent of _what haven’t you people told me_ whips through the question like wind in a hurricane.

Natasha blinks, her expression inscrutable and undaunted, even as Sam and Steve suddenly find the carpet very interesting

To be fair, she arrived _after_ May finished unloading on Peter for _being reckless_ and _completely ignoring his own safety_ and _not_ telling _her, even though they’re supposed to be a team now._

(Natasha also arrived after he murmured watery apologies over her shoulder and told her he’d never leave her like that, not ever again, that he’d introduce her to Iron because he cares about protecting him like she does, but Natasha doesn’t need to know about that.)

Sam and Steve, though, they got the full experience and look properly terrified of May’s wrath. Peter’s glad he’s not alone.

“The other two were supposed to be here by now,” she continues.

“Iron and Bucky,” Peter reminds May, pressing his lips nervously together.

Natasha nods. “We split up after we got back from the HYDRA base. They were supposed to come straight here while I gave the area another sweep. They should’ve been here before me.”

“So for them to be late means something went wrong,” May fills in the blank sharply, and Peter’s hands ball into fists, some of the color draining from his face as he swallows in apprehension.

“It means something came up,” Natasha amends, probably for the benefit of Peter’s peace of mind, with a glance his way. “They’re trained assassins. I doubt they ran into anything they couldn’t beat. One of them probably just decided there was something else they needed to take care of.”

By “one of them”, everyone but May has to know she means Iron, but Peter appreciates her leaving that detail out. May’s already not Iron’s biggest fan; she doesn’t need any more reasons to dislike him.

“But they could’ve run into people from HYDRA?” 

Her gaze as she asks the question bores into Natasha from over the rims of her glasses, and while it’s intense, its weight is lessened by the anxious clasp of her hands in her lap. 

Peter gets it.

The thing is, May doesn’t mean to set him off, doesn’t know, but Peter draws in a breath as subtly as he can, trying to appear nonplussed despite feeling the phantom of a needle pricking his neck, rough hands tossing him into his cell.

(People from HYDRA, she said, like the scientists studying him with gruesome intent, accepting without question that Peter, in their care, was no longer human, just an experiment to pick apart at their whim.)

Steve’s eyes snap to him, probably hearing the heartbeat Peter can feel in his teeth picking up, but Natasha carries on, unbothered. “Ma’am—”

“Just May is fine.”

It’s not a suggestion.

Natasha smiles, the motion cursory but not insincere. “May,” she corrects herself, “I’m not being dramatic when I say that you and Peter are probably the most protected people in the country right now. No one HYDRA might send could get through this room to you two, and on the off chance that they got held up by enemy agents, they’d know better than to lead them back here. Neither of you has anything to worry about—I promise.”

Her eyes slide from May to Peter as she finishes, and Peter nods, though he keeps taking deep breaths. He knows she’s right, but regardless, he’d like Iron back in his sights _now_ , please and thank you. He hasn’t been without him in a long time, and especially knowing the fight he just went through—

He shifts on the couch, nails sinking into his crossed arms.

It’d just be nice to see for himself that he’s okay, but until then, he tries to act like everything’s fine.

And then, what feels like an eternity later, there’s a knock on the door.

//

Tony’s first, absurd thought, is that it’s strange to greet Peter in his apartment by coming through the front door. Then, he has his arms full with a kid whose heart is beating just a little too fast, and he decides that, as long as he’s happy to see him, this works too.

“Good to see you too,” he mumbles and doesn’t loosen his grip until Peter backs away. Tony’s gaze bounces around the interior of the apartment he’s never fully entered, over the bookshelves, the pot sitting in the sink, and then it settles on the most important thing in it.

There’s a nearly ridiculous amount of people crammed into a not-very-big living room, but Tony knows May Parker, has ever since he stole a computer he found on an assignment to track down where Peter, after his parents’ deaths, ended up.

It’s not how he imagined things going. In all his visions he indulged in on the rare occasion that he was left in his cell to think for any extended time, he thought about meeting her with her husband, seeing the entire family he’s responsible for creating.

She looks a little unkempt, torn and wrinkled around the edges, but Tony knows better than to doubt that she’s capable of anything she might set her mind to. He knows how aunts work, and though Peggy and May are a generation apart, he can’t help but see a shadow of her flintiness in how May looks him up and down, unabashedly judging him for all he’s worth.

Peter herds him forward to where May has gotten off her couch and come around to greet him. The kid’s expression is sunlight mingled with a surprising amount of relief, but Tony supposes he did keep him waiting longer than he expected. At any rate, he lets Peter put him in front of May, and though Tony is technically taller than her, he feels small under her scrutiny.

“May, this is Iron. Iron, this is May.”

And, of course, there’s that little snag too.

“Tony, actually, but it’s a pleasure, ma’am,” he offers, holding out a hand. The formality rolls off his tongue without hesitation, and he suspects the instinct is Peggy or Maria’s doing, though he doesn’t understand the smug smile gracing Natasha’s face as he speaks. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

Slowly, _cautiously_ , May shakes. “Nice to meet you too,” she replies, but Tony somehow doubts how much she means the words. As if to solidify his suspicions, she turns to speak to the rest of the crowd gathered in her home. “If you all could give us a second.” Her head tips towards the door of the apartment, and though the words are technically a request, everyone files obediently out the door, including Peter.

Tony has felt more secure with a gun aimed at his face, and as he passes by, Sam makes a sympathetic expression that devolves into a wince.

Tony knows that, at the very least, Peter, Steve, and Bucky will be able to hear the conversation, but even if May hasn’t considered that herself, he doubts she’d care.

They listen to their footsteps drift a little further down the hall, and then it’s the two of them. Everyone else was relatively at ease, seated around the living room before he came in, but May stays standing, all the warmth gone out of her expression.

“You killed Mary and Richard?” she asks.

They’re not doing any preamble, then. 

It makes sense, really, especially considering the laundry list of crimes he’s committed against the Parkers, against Peter, but it’s nothing he wants to confront. Still, Tony nods, schooling his expression into something unreadable. May shouldn’t have to see his guilt, have it potentially hinder her wrath.

(Peter may have forgiven him, but Tony knows how horrific what he did is. He has always thought himself deserving of punishment, even if Peter was too kind to agree.)

“Yes,” he admits.

He’s killed more than them, killed so much it makes bile rise in the back of his throat to think about, but though Tony never knew Peter’s parents, he understands what it is to have two question marks drawn in on what should be the most important figures in somebody’s life.

May hasn’t looked away from him, though her hands are trembling—with anger, Tony assumes, but then he sees tears building in her eyes. Is it sadness, then? He doesn’t get the chance to figure it out before she continues.

“With him in the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“And told him that, if he told anyone, you’d kill him?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t try to defend himself, not to her. He has his shoulders back, his chin up, arms limp at his sides. It’s not quite the way he would hold himself around his handlers. For one, he doesn’t fear her, so there is none of the alertness he maintained so nothing they thought up could take him by surprise. No, he’s not treating her like a superior. May Parker, Tony knows, is nowhere near as cruel as the lot of them, not if she was able to raise someone like Peter, but she is worthy of considerable respect. To Tony, that means making himself presentable, and by presentable, he means everything Howard and HYDRA have taught him: no excuses, no talking back, no _insolence._

(Whether Tony realizes the extent of the deference he is showing a woman who never asked it of him is up for debate.)

May stares at him, and Tony stands straight and imposing, a toy soldier never unpackaged from its box.

“Let’s sit,” she says, and Tony does, settling on the opposite end of the couch from her.

There’s a moment, admiring the texture of its fabric—just a little too plush to be comfortable after a lifetime of cots—where he remembers trying to rest, what feels like eons ago, on Bucky’s sofa in Romania, only to find that he couldn’t stand the softness of it, where he remembers penning Peter’s address and name in his notebook, where he remembers seeing a glimpse of a life—of _freedom_ —he truly thought he’d never be lucky enough to have.

If May notices the slightly more determined press of his body into the cushions at the thought, she says nothing about it. Instead, she lifts her chin, unafraid, daring. “You tell me your side of things,” she instructs him. “Peter already gave me the rundown, but I’d like to hear it again.”

(She wants the unsanitized version, Tony understands.)

And so he tells her.

He has to give credit where credit is due; May doesn’t flinch, doesn’t tell him to stop through the tears rolling soundlessly down her cheeks, not when he tells her about forgetting his own name, not when he tells her about mindlessly killing anyone HYDRA pointed at, and not when he tells her about the pain, never-ending and numbing. In fact, where it’s necessary, she presses him for details, to understand exactly how he turned out so damaged and _wrong_ , Tony presumes.

“You said there were trigger words to go with the—the—”

“Wipes?”

She nods, a hand fluttering down to her lap from where it’d been gesturing. “Yes, the wipes. And _those_ were what made you turn against him?”

“Yes.”

There’s so much more he wants to say— _he’d never touch Peter again given the word, the damage Pierce said he’d done haunts his nightmares, he’s so_ sorry—but if there’s one lesson his life has pounded into him, it’s when to hold his tongue. He won’t say a word more than May asks for, not when he owes her so much, though they’ve never met before today.

“And who all knows your words?”

They ghost along the fringes of his consciousness, ten knives sharpened to deadly points and eager to whittle away everything that makes Tony human.

_(Gilded, revolution, two, exchange, titanium, nineteen, seven, rise, trinket, conductor.)_

“Nobody. I burned the book they were written in.”

Tony has been trying very, very hard to only deliver as much as is asked, but he can’t quite keep a film of _pridereliefvindication_ from settling over the admission—the _fact_. 

But May isn’t done.

She looks him in the eyes, and Tony feels for all the world like she can read him like rings on a tree, all his layers laid out for her to see. “So if you were to hurt him again, _then_ it would be on you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he confirms, adding the title because he can feel the gravity of her question in his marrow.

He’s told her everything by then, so this is the judgment call, the guilty verdict he’s been expecting since the moment he processed just how inhumanely he’d treated Peter nine, ten years ago. He braces himself for it as May wipes a hand across her cheek to clear away some of the tear stains on its pale expanse.

Except—

“It’s May,” she tells him instead. “And if you ever lay a hand on him again, I don’t _care_ if you’re a super soldier—I’ll rip you apart.”

She, by all accounts, looks every bit like a woman going through something difficult, but through the makeup smeared around her eyes, the grease of her hair, every inch of her is stone, as liable to remain steady for others to lean on as it is to slide and bury anyone who would dare to cross her.

(Tony knows better than to doubt that she’s capable of anything she might set her mind to. He knows how aunts work.)

“Now tell me about you,” she prompts, and everything Tony thought he had to maintain to make their connection work crumbles in the best way.

(With the same care she uses to build her nephew up, May lays the foundation for bringing in someone else who cares about him just as much.)

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

It turns out that when May said _“If you could give us a second,”_ she actually meant a little over an hour, or at least, that’s Peter’s guess. He doesn’t have a watch, and he hasn’t asked anyone else for specifics.

After the first five minutes of loitering awkwardly in the hall and hearing May receive steadily more disturbing answers to her questions, Bucky mentions that they should find somewhere to wait, and Natasha announces that they’re going a few floors down to another agent’s place.

(They don’t say it’s because Peter is getting paler the longer he hears what’s going on inside, but Natasha does press a consoling, glancing hand between his shoulder blades as they pile into the elevator, which is all the communication necessary.)

So they sit, and Peter mulls over the events of the day, balled up on the floor and leaning against the wall despite the various furniture the others have suggested he sit on.

He’d prefer the ceiling, honestly, somewhere he knows nobody will be able to reach him because this feels like a trick, some fantasy he’s going to wake up from, but he’s aware that his wall-climbing can be disconcerting and is willing to make do with a similarly hard surface.

He closes his eyes, breathing in— _the feeling of May’s arms around him_ —and breathing out— _looking around his_ home _for the first time in four months._

It’s a lot, but it’s much, much better than the alternative, the life he would still be suffering through without Iron’s foresight and Bucky’s initiative. 

Everyone’s been talking for a while, but as if sensing that Peter’s thoughts have gone to Iron, Steve, from where he’s seated at the kitchen counter, asks a question Peter nearly forgot he was curious about himself: “Back there, did he call himself Tony?”

Peter lifts his head from inspecting the grain of the floor to see Bucky nod. “Seeing Pierce set him off. If I had to guess, he’s trying to shake anything left of what HYDRA put in him. The name they gave him is a part of that.”

Then, Sam. “But why _Tony?_ Seems kind of random.”

Bucky blinks in what Peter realizes is confusion. To be fair, he’s probably thinking the same thing as him— _you don’t already know?_

“He really didn’t tell _anybody_ who he was before HYDRA grabbed him, huh,” Bucky sighs, eyes darting from Natasha to Sam to Steve with a touch of exasperation.

Natasha scowls, Steve looks away, and Sam continues to look confused. The agent whose apartment they’re temporarily occupying doesn’t look up from their computer.

“He’s Tony Stark,” Bucky deadpans.

Sam raises a brow. “Tony _Stark?_ The dead one?”

Peter nods. “Yeah, that’s him. Except, you know, he’s not dead after all.”

“How come you three know about it?” Natasha snaps, and Peter shrinks back at the irritation in her tone, though she seems focused on Bucky and Steve more than him. Peter supposes that makes sense—everybody knows he and Iron tell each other everything—but he still has no interest in getting on Natasha’s bad side. Ever.

Steve tries to protest. “I never said—”

“You’re a horrible liar, Steve.”

Steve ducks his head. “He yelled at me about it,” he admits, and while Peter doesn’t find that accusation improbable—Iron’s only recently started to like Steve, after all, and he can make himself very unpleasant when he so chooses—he does wonder when it happened.

Bucky tips his head in Peter’s direction. “The kid and I were there when he found out,” he explains, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He’s not nearly as scared of Natasha as the rest of them, probably because Peter knows he’s fought her before and come out the other side alive, and he meets her annoyance fearlessly, if not with a hint of amusement.

“I thought we all knew,” Peter defends himself, just in case.

Natasha sniffs and doesn’t _exactly_ turn her nose up, but Peter still feels her indignance as she shifts away a little.

(Privately, he thinks he understands why Bucky thinks it’s funny; it’s not often anybody, in Peter’s experience, gets to see Natasha thrown for a loop.)

“How long do you think they’re going to talk?” Sam asks the room at large, deftly turning the conversation away from Natasha’s vexation, and all eyes swivel to Peter, who shrugs.

“Honestly, I don’t know. Depends on how mad she is. She might yell and get everything out of her system soon enough, but when we left, she sounded pretty serious.” In his mind’s eye, he sees her face after his parents, Ben, challenging every teacher who did nothing about the various bullies that have shown up at the sight of Peter’s threadbare clothes or fumbling demeanor. He swallows, making sure none of that comes through in his voice he forces to be steady. “So, it might be a while still.”

If he’s being honest, being separated from the two most important people in his life is a little nerve-wracking, but he’s trying to be cool about it. He knows, logically, that they’re still in the building—hell, he’s probably been farther from Iron in the SHIELD base—but everything is going suspiciously well. He doesn’t trust his luck to hold.

As if he’s able to sense his trepidation, there’s a second where Sam’s eyes, big and dark and kind, stare past his calm veneer and find more than Peter’s used to people looking for. Then, his lips split in an easy smile, a perfect distraction he’s deliberately providing. “Yeah? You get chewed out enough to get the system down?”

And Peter snorts and tells him all about the shit he’s gotten into over the years while Bucky and Steve occasionally chip in, arguing with each other over what was whose fault until Peter doesn’t feel like a hastily built house of cards, one rough touch from collapsing.

Peter sees Natasha watching them out of the corner of his eye, but he isn’t bothered when she doesn’t add to the conversation. She does that sometimes, retreats into herself and observes what’s going on instead of inserting herself into it. Peter wishes that he could do that. Everything he’d gather from shutting the hell up from time to time would probably benefit him, but he, unfortunately, likes to talk a little too much for that to happen.

That’s why he isn’t focused on her as she pulls out her phone and checks it in his peripheral, only for her head to snap dangerously to face Bucky. “Where the _hell_ did you and Tony go before you came here?” she growls, and the casual conversation dies instantly.

It’s strange hearing Iron’s new name in her mouth, but what’s even more so is the fact that Bucky winces, scratching at the back of his neck as though embarrassed. “Word got out that fast? It’s only been a few hours.”

“A few hours since _what?”_ she presses, even as her fingers fly over her phone screen. “Where were you two?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, and like when Natasha purposely tried to rile Iron up, Peter feels like he’s in the middle of two bombs set to detonate at any second. “If you’re asking me, you already know,” he rebuffs her concerns, and while Peter figures that’s a valid point, he knows Natasha keeps a lot of knives on her at all times—she showed him one time and taught him how to hold them—and is genuinely concerned for his safety as well as very confused.

Her eyes narrow. “Did you or did you not work with Tony to assassinate Obadiah Stane?” she grits out, every word spear-tipped.

“In my defense, he was going to do it with or without my help.”

Peter hears the various reactions to that—

“You two _killed someone_ on your way here?” Steve exclaims.

“Jesus _Christ,”_ from Sam.

—but is personally grappling with the news quietly.

Peter has a . . . complicated relationship with death. As Spider-Man, he didn’t— _doesn’t_ —believe in killing. That’s why he has his webs, uses them to leave people hanging to consider how they can do better, but on the other hand, he’s seen it so, so many times.

The memory of his parents’ bodies is faded but not entirely gone, as persistent as anything about them. His mom’s smile, the shape of his dad’s glasses—that stuff’s just as vibrant in his head as their limp forms sprawled on linoleum. Much more prevalent is the sight of crimson pooling on the floor of a convenience store, Ben’s face as he slipped through Peter’s fingers. All of that, though, was fast, efficient in its brutality, but Iron—

Iron has been _forced_ to kill, but more than that, hasn’t he suffered a thousand deaths of his own?

Peter held his uncle’s hand as he died, watched his brown eyes capable of so much affection glaze over, and he saw them again as Iron beat him into the ground—dead, _soulless_ , even in the sockets of a man still technically alive.

(Spider-Man doesn’t believe in killing, but he isn’t so naive to think that it’s as simple as not _believing_ in something.)

Iron can be ruthless, but he isn’t arbitrary. If he killed Stane, went out of his way to do so, he has a reason, and maybe if he were anyone else, if his story was different, Peter would doubt that someone could have wronged him to the point of deserving to die.

But he isn’t someone else, and Peter has lived a fraction of his life.

He has no desire to dwell on the thought, but just like the apathy he bears towards the thought of Pierce getting his due, even one Peter wouldn’t have the strength to deliver himself, he eventually arrives at a natural numbness as his reaction to Stane’s death.

(At the end of the day, Stane doubtlessly hurt Iron, and Peter is _sick_ of people being able to do that without consequence.)

Natasha is yelling at Bucky, and Sam and Steve are trying to simultaneously calm the situation and figure out the details of how and why a billionaire has been killed in—Peter can admit—cold blood.

For their part, the agent renting the apartment crouches lower above their computer.

Peter takes a deep breath. Even if he is weirdly unruffled by the circumstances, he needs a second to regroup, but after the first breath, and then another, and then some more after that, he decides he doesn’t want to join the conversation spiraling steadily out of control.

(“Of all the _reckless_ shit you two could’ve done—” Natasha bites.

“I said we were careful! Tony wiped all the footage,” Bucky insists.

“And _I_ said not to do anything stupid!”

Sam has an impressively deep furrow in his brow. “How did Tony wipe the footage?”

Steve, exasperated, “Can we all calm down?”)

In the commotion, it’s easier than it should be with two master spies in the room for Peter to slip up the wall he’s leaning on and out of the apartment, heading back upstairs to find Iron and May sitting peacefully on the couch with mugs of coffee and tea, respectively.

“Where’s everyone else?” Iron asks, raising his brows at the same time May does, which would be creepy if Peter wasn’t impossibly happy to see the two of them getting along far better than he thought they would when he left the apartment.

Peter shifts his weight from one foot to the other, his hands in his pockets. “They—uh—found out about Stane, and they’re not super jazzed about it. I kind of made a break for it when they were distracted.”

“Stane?” May questions, shooting a sharp glance Iron’s way as he winces just like Bucky had.

“It’s kind of a long story,” he tells her apologetically, following his words with an abnormally large drink of coffee, probably bracing himself. “I can explain when the rest of them show up, but if you don’t mind—”

He looks to Peter. May follows his gaze, and Peter smiles softly despite the slight burn building behind his eyes at the sight of them in one place.

“It can wait,” she agrees, and without anyone asking, Peter comes to sit between the two of them, filling in the extra space on the couch as May leans over to kiss his temple and Iron squeezes his hand.

And though Peter knows his visit with May is only temporary, though he knows that Iron probably has more up his sleeve than anyone knows just yet, though he knows the other four and their chaos will be storming in given a few minutes, with May on one side of him and Iron on the other, the world feels stable, and that’s all he’s ever really wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May!! And!! Tony!!! This chapter was a bitch and a half to write, but I’m so happy to have Peter finally reunited with all of his family.
> 
> I know I’ve been teasing Rhodey for a few chapters now, but he’ll start getting some serious screentime with next week’s update, I swear!! I love him and want him back with Tony, and we’re almost there.
> 
> Finally, thank you guys for all of the comments on last week’s chapter! It’s crazy to me that this fic has gotten so long, and it means the world to me that people have stuck around to follow it after literally five _months_ of updates. You guys are the best. <3


	21. Chapter 21

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_ **  
**

_“They found out about Stane, and they’re not super jazzed about it,”_ Peter said, and to be fair, he was right that when they nearly break the door of the apartment down in their search for Peter, they’re not s _uper jazzed_ at all. To be a little more specific, they’re varying shades of exasperated, pissed, or in Natasha’s case, murderous. 

They’re also not very pleased to be made to wait while he gives May the rundown of his past life—who he is, why Stane matters. However, if nothing else, Tony admires their cohesiveness, even if that means the three of them—with Bucky chiming in occasionally—grilling Tony about why he killed Stane, how he did it, and most practically, the size of the mess they’re going to need to cover up, all with May and Peter in the room.

Tony skimps on the details in the interest of not freaking Peter out, though he seems calm, sitting with him and May on the couch, but he does answer their inquiries: “He was involved in HYDRA kidnapping me way back when, and I poisoned him, dumped it in his whiskey. You’re overreacting. I shorted out the cameras and made sure there weren’t any witnesses, and anyway, they’re not going to trace it back to someone who kicked the bucket a few decades ago. Besides,” he insists, mouth pinching with bitterness he can’t quite hide, “I’m going to get all the documents I need to prove his hand in selling me off before I take over the company, along with any other dirt I can find on him.”

All Tony _means_ to reveal is that he’s going to take over Stark Industries again, and that decision is, admittedly, fueled by his desire to render Stane’s progress as CEO unremarkable. However, everything _before_ that declaration could have, admittedly, been worded better.

Peter’s head whips to him from where he’s been following the argument, eyes going from pinging to whoever is talking the loudest to laser-focused on Tony instantaneously. “What’d you just say?” he snaps, and though Tony _knows_ not to underestimate him, it’s always interesting to be reminded that Peter, as unassuming as he might outwardly seem, has a titanium, unbendable core.

“That I’m taking over the company once I get the chance.” If he goes fast enough, maybe they can just bulldoze past that little _snafu_ , right into pretending it never fucking happened because Tony has enough grisly aspects to his backstory without adding that he was trafficked into HYDRA’s care. “Natasha—” he begins, planning on asking her to contact Fury about the situation, but Bucky cuts him off.

“Did you say HYDRA _bought you_ from him?”

Tony doesn’t think as much often, but maybe HYDRA had a point when they made it so that he couldn’t talk and therefore couldn’t shove his foot in his mouth. Six pairs of eyes are fixed on him in varying and muddied states of shock, revulsion, pity, and, most notably from Peter, anger.

Tony sighs. “I wasn’t planning on having that be communal knowledge yet, so if I did, is there any chance we could let it go? ” he asks, already knowing the answer but not wanting to hear it.

Bucky’s reaction is jagged rocks at the bottom of a cliff, dangerous fists and a clenched jaw, and though Tony has never feared Peter, his expression isn’t much softer, the careful apathy from before blown to smithereens.

(Tony saw his strength back at the safe house, but before now, he’s never seen the extent of the passion, hard and angry and _protective_ , furled up inside of him.)

“Stark Industries made my wings,” Sam prefaces, voice low. “I did some research on them because of that when I got discharged. Stane was a close friend of the Stark’s, donated to the search to find Tony—to find _you_ when you disappeared. He does work with a charity named for you.”

Tony huffs a jaded, taut laugh. “Well, clearly they weren’t that close. Had no compunctions about getting rid of me to take charge, anyway. Back there, he said he was starting the game over before things got messy—nothing personal.” His words twist, cold and well-formed but betraying, under close enough examination, Tony’s outrage that someone meant to protect him threw him to the wolves.

Then, Natasha. “Did the poison hurt?” she bites, every syllable cutting.

Tony shakes his head, and her features darken with hate. _It should’ve_ , they read, even if she won’t say it with civilians in the room.

Steve and May look upset too, more so than Tony deserves. But at seeing them all _care_ , something warm nestles against the fury that has yet to abate in his stomach, something that glows like appreciation and maybe even friendship

There’s a long silence, the air intangibly shifting with a ripple of something Tony chooses not to put his finger on, and he needs it to end, can’t stand the attention or the sympathy. 

He clears his throat, and his words come out a little stilted, too casual for the topic of discussion: “It’s settled now, anyway. He’s not going to come back from the grave to bite me, but I do have a company to take back. Is SHIELD willing to help with that?”

He directs the question at Natasha. Sam and Steve, for as long as it took Tony to see it, are good men, but they don’t know the organization like Natasha, and Bucky, similar to Tony, cares more about pissing Fury off than how he runs his shit.

She stares at him unblinkingly, and though Tony knows that means she’s not done thinking about Stane, she does give him a reply. “Depends on what Fury thinks he’ll get out of the deal.”

Tony doesn’t know what else he expected. Still, he smirks, and a little more of the tension in the room dissipates at his slick confidence. “How about funding from Stark Industries?”

“Sounds like something he’d like.”

_Bingo._

Natasha pulls out her phone, swiping away a notification Tony’s keen eyes peg as being from the news app—

BREAKING: STARK INDUSTRIES CEO, OBADIAH STANE, FOUND DEAD IN CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS

—to which Tony tamps down the urge to broaden his expression. Nobody looks particularly grieved over Stane’s death, but Tony figures there’s no need to add another disturbing element to that can of worms.

“Sam, Steve,” she mutters, focused on her screen she’s now tilted out of Tony’s view, “come with me. May, can we use an extra bedroom to make a few calls?”

From the couch, May nods. “Peter’s is down the hall to your left and is clean.” She looks to Peter after she speaks, brows knitting. “You don’t mind, do you?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. Not like I have anything out in there,” he assures her, and despite everything, Tony watches a set of grim but comfortable smiles pass between the two of them.

The three of them leave, though Tony knows Natasha is fully aware that the only one unable to listen in on whatever they say is May. That leaves Bucky, Peter, May, and himself in the living room, but their numbers get halved when May stands up. “Bucky, can I get you something to drink?”

Bucky, looking vaguely startled that, by Tony’s guess, someone thought to offer him something, takes a moment to think before he nods. “Coffee, if you have it.”

May nods, moving towards the kitchen, but after taking a few steps, she pauses, turning back around. “Actually, I have a few kinds, and I’m not sure about all the brands and names. If you want to come with me—” she trails off, but her point is clear.

She and Bucky drift over to the kitchen, making small talk Tony tunes out, and then it’s him and Peter again, still seated together on the couch.

A beat, and then, from Peter—

“So, Tony, huh?”

He’s said the name before, back when Tony was still figuring out who he was, but it’s different now; it’s _his,_ but Peter has always been his exception.

“You can call me anything you want,” Tony assures him. He’ll be Iron still, if that’s what he wants. It’s what he’s always been to Peter, after all, and if he doesn’t want to change after a decade, he can hardly fault him.

But Peter shakes his head, face considering. “No, I like it.” He reaches out to let his fingertips rest gingerly over where the reactor lies before he looks up and meets Tony’s gaze. “It suits you,” he swears.

Tony, for all that he’s accepted the name as his own once more, finds it strangely soothing to hear someone else think so too. He smiles, a softer, more open version of the razor-edged thing from his conversation with Natasha. “I’m glad,” he admits, and for his honesty, is rewarded with his expression mirrored on Peter.

//

_CAMBRIDGE - 1989_

The boy meets his best friend on an unusually cold summer day.

He’s sped through his pre-secondary education, which leaves him moving into his dorm room at MIT alone, fifteen and caught between missing the familiarity of home and the relief of being away from his father.

People are bustling in and out of the halls—the boy saw them when he carried his handful of boxes up after the driver his father hired took off—but they’re all at least a few years older. He knows how to work a room of businessmen, how to charm their wives when they appear at the events he’s expected to attend, but these are people _his age_. It’s easy with adults—real adults, not ones failing at growing facial hair or trying drugs for the first time—because he knows how to play that; he’s the enigmatic, _entertaining_ son of a tycoon, and with a few quips here and there, stoking egos or appearing deceivingly naive, he can make them like him.

There are no rules here, and it terrifies him, so the boy sticks to his room with its old twin beds and something musty in the air.

And then in walks a tall, dark boy with a bustling family, little siblings running everywhere as they fawn over his _very own room, James!_

(Not quite true, but nobody bothers contradicting them.)

The boy is overwhelmed almost instantly and tries to make a break for it—and by it, he means the bathroom—but his soon-to-be-best-friend sees him trying to sneak out and offers his hand. “I’m James Rhodes,” he introduces himself.

“Tony Stark,” the boy says, for lack of a better option.

When they shake, his hands aren’t stiff, formal, like the people the boy’s father works with. No, they’re warm and a little calloused, just like the boy’s, and almost instantly, the boy decides he likes James.

By the end of the week, _James_ will become _Rhodey_ , which, the boy insists, is the greatest kindness he’s ever done him.

_“James is one step away from Jim, Rhodey-bear, and you are not a seventy-year-old man.”_

(For as long as they have together, Rhodey similarly insists that the nickname is ridiculous, but he doesn’t correct people who use it after the boy introduces him under it.)

By the end of the month, the boy will have one letter from home penned with forboding stationery from his mother, carrying vague encouragement from his aunt, his butler, and her. His best friend—a title that comes rather quickly due to the boy having very few friends to begin with, though their relationship naturally takes time to develop—receives six that smell of various spices and are covered in haphazardly placed stickers.

By the end of the semester, they will have terrorized their engineering professor, their RA, and several frat houses, and when they look at each other, past the unavoidable smell that comes with two teenage boys living together, the memory of each other hurling into toilet bowls, their gangly, still-growing limbs, they realize that they’ve never met someone quite like each other and have no intention of letting that bond go anytime soon.

Before there were tears and torture and triggers, the boy found himself becoming half of a matched set, and after ages of only being Howard’s son, Howard’s _prodigy_ , it’s an indescribably comforting experience to shed some of his uniqueness.

(The boy is terrified to lose that when he has to go home for the summer, and Rhodey sees it.)

“You’re going to be okay,” he assures him, though the boy has yet to voice his fear. “You still have the address for my house and the phone number, right?”

The boy nods, his hands shaking as he puts his backpack on. He wants to say _yes_ , wants to say _but really, don’t worry about me._

(He wants to say _please tell me I don’t have to go back.)_

Rhodey notices the trembling, and his expression tightens. Still, he doesn’t say anything about it, just draws the boy into a tight, bracing hug before he has to leave. “Call ahead if you can, but if you show up unannounced, that’s cool too. See you in August, alright?”

“See you in August,” the boy echoes weakly, already dreaming of the apartment they’re going to rent, and then he walks out the door while his best friend’s hands ball into protective fists.

That summer, when the boy’s father gets too drunk and goes to strike him, is the first time the boy manages to duck, having practiced in the bar fights that break out when he or Rhodey finds some stupid hill to die on.

(He ducks the first blow, anyway, and then his father gets angrier, starts shouting, and the boy decides to keep his fury contained to the study where his mother and their butler won’t have to hear.)

The boy moves into his apartment a week before the date he and his best friend agreed on after a particularly bad fight, having paid off the landlord to do so. He finds a payphone to tell Rhodey as much, but the thing is, he’s had vodka. Like, a lot of vodka, straight and fast and burning so that he can watch the world be fast and slow all at once, which makes his feet unsure of where they need to go. 

Needless to say, the intelligibility of his voice is shaky, at best.

“‘M at the ‘partment,” he slurs to Rhodey, who was luckily the one to pick up Tony’s call to his house phone.

“What?” he replies, straight to the point.

Rude, the boy thinks, and he frowns. “‘M at the _‘partment,”_ he tries again, this time with more oomph. “My dad—” A hiccup. “—sucks, so ‘m ‘ere now. Took a ta—taxi,” he explains, mouth struggling to form words, “‘n then I had a shot. Or two. May—maybe three or four or s’mthing. Don’ ‘member.”

On the other line, the boy hears Rhodey taking a deep breath, and in the isolation of the phone booth, he flinches. Oh God, did he make him mad? He hopes not—maybe harder than he’s ever hoped for something before. He likes Rhodey so much; he doesn’t want him to be mad, not like his father, and before he realizes what’s happening, tears begin to slip quietly down his cheeks, a warbly sort of warm with the liquor humming in his veins. 

“Tones?” Rhodey asks, and the boy tenses, looking to the side as if he can glance away from the anger he knows is coming, but— “Can you promise me not to have anything else tonight? Until I get there?”

The boy nods, and it takes him a second to realize that Rhodey won’t be able to see that. “Sure—sure,” he agrees instead, shoving another coin into the machine just in case the time runs low. He doesn’t want to stop talking to Rhodey, not when he hasn’t even yelled at him yet.

He’s going to yell at him, right?

But as if to prove how great he is, Rhodey keeps talking, his voice calm, measured. “I’ll be in town in a day or two, and if you still want to drink then, I’ll watch you.”

That sounds good. The boy doesn’t like drinking alone very much, anyway, but words like _worthless_ and _a disappointment_ and _useless_ were bouncing around painfully in his skull, and alcohol makes them go away for a little bit.

“‘Kay,” he murmurs, swaying side to side in the booth because it feels nice, doesn’t even hurt his bruises. “You’re comin’?”

He just needs to check.

“I’m coming,” Rhodey promises. “Hold on, okay?”

“‘Kay,” he repeats, quieter than before, and when Rhodey does show up, his arms are as strong and safe around him as they were a few months ago.

(Rhodey holds the boy, his best friend, too, and wishes he could do more.)

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

It’s just Peter and Tony in the hotel room, and Peter’s going to kill him. He has to be cheating because there is no logical way he could otherwise win eight straight games of go fish.

Peter eyes the pairs Tony has fanned out like a peacock showing off its feathers. “How are you doing it?”

Tony shrugs. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“You’re horrible.”

“And _you’re_ being mean to me. What about me makes you think I might _cheat,_ of all things?” He has the balls to bat his unusually long lashes as if to attest to his innocence, and Peter grabs one of his three sets—two queens—and throws them at him with questionable success as he laughs.

What a jackass.

“It’s not fun to play if you’re going to ignore the rules,” Peter scolds.

Tony sighs. _“Fine._ One last game, and I’ll play fair this time.”

Peter wishes he could say he’s surprised when he loses again. Really, he should’ve known from the sharp-toothed grin Tony flashed when they were getting started, and to make himself feel better, he reaches across the table and scatters the neat pairs Tony has laying in front of him.

If anyone else was there, they might be surprised at how easily the two of them settle into this sort of teasing. It’s deceptively juvenile and more pure fun than either of them often gets otherwise, but the way Peter sees it, it’s good. Tony’s getting better, but he still needs to loosen up a little bit. However, that doesn’t mean Peter’s going to continue playing with him. 

“We’re done,” Peter announces with a scowl, and Tony offers a rare laugh as he sullenly gathers the cards and puts them back in the deck. “How long until everyone is back, anyway?”

Bucky is currently on guard duty with May, something they’ve had to set up with their extended stay in the city, and Natasha, Sam, and Steve are off meeting discreetly with a representative for Stark Industries about establishing Tony as heir to the company. The latest in that saga is a DNA test to prove that he really is Tony Stark, and though Tony maintains his hatred of medical procedures, he’s confessed that it wasn’t _terrible_ to go through with Natasha in the room and watching everything with her usual brand of disconcertingly intense focus.

Tony shrugs. “Not sure. Sam said things were coming down to paperwork—wills and company policy and all that—and that shit takes forever to wade through.”

Whether that knowledge is something from before HYDRA, a result of the fervid research Tony has done in preparation for claiming control of a tech empire, or common sense, Peter doesn’t know. He doesn’t question it, either. He couldn’t care less about technical legal stuff like that, and he doesn’t want an explanation.

To make sure he doesn’t get one, Peter scoffs, leading the conversation to shallow, playful waters. “How would you know? You’ve never done paperwork in your life.”

Tony looks affronted. “That is _not_ true! Natasha gave me plenty of files to sort through on the jet ride here, and—”

His voice dies off abruptly, and though Tony is a good liar, Peter is starting to pick up on, at the very least, when he’s trying to hide something.

Tony’s mouth pinches. Peter might have intended to fall back on banter, but this seems more important.

“Tony?” he prods, the name new but not unpleasant in his mouth. “And what?”

“Let’s talk about it later,” he tries, too fast.

Peter’s eyes narrow. Tony’s getting better, but occasionally, there are still times where he has to face emotion and would much rather turn tail. There’s been a few instances lately, the most notable being from a few nights ago, when Bucky and Tony took something out on the balcony of the hotel room but wouldn’t explain the burnt smell and pile of ash left behind when they came in. If it was another one of those, where Peter knows someone else is available to hold him accountable, he’d let it drop, but it’s not.

“Let’s talk about it now,” he counters, though he makes sure to gentle his insistence. He gets why Tony deflects, but he isn’t going to let him walk away this easily, not when it’s clearly a bigger thorn in his side than he’d care to admit.

He seems stiff where he sits on the floor a few feet away from Peter, but it’s different from any way Peter’s seen him hold himself before. It’s not the robotic set of his body under HYDRA’s control, not even the dread of knowing his orders are coming. It’s not guilt, not fear, just heaviness, a certain apprehension that Peter can’t place.

“I’ve made it this far,” Peter points out in an attempt to get him to relax. “I can take a little more.”

A strange look comes over Tony’s face, and it gives Peter the impression that he’s looking through him instead of at him.

Peter hears him take a breath in, watches his eyes close for a moment, and then—

“I was reading through some files, and they said that when all the experiments were over, they were going to make you into another Soldier.”

Peter’s stomach plummets. His eyes widen, and he can’t stop himself from sucking in a burst of air too quickly to be comfortable. “Oh,” he whispers, and for an impossibly long second, he is in a world of steel tables and flashing needles that turns to a concrete room and blood on the ground.

(Could he have been like that? As savage and uncaring as Tony was, then, having forgotten everything except how to kill?)

A haunting picture appears to Peter of himself in black, bulky combat gear instead of his sweatsuit, a muzzle clamped over his mouth and red crusted under his fingernails as he stands above two bodies poised like his parents’ were.

“Peter?”

His name reaches through the illusion, tender but seeming like a slap for the intensity with which it slams him back into his body.

“I—I—”

It’s hard to speak around the news, filling his mind and the back of his throat in a greasy, impossible-to-clean heap.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done—I should’ve eased into it, warned you. Come here.”

The words process, vaguely, but not enough for Peter to do anything about it, and when he feels staunch, familiar arms tug him close, he doesn’t hesitate to sag into the embrace.

Peter _knows_ that Soldiers aren’t inherently bad. Bucky and Tony would never hurt him, and he doubly understands that, where they could, they often tried to resist. However, he also knows about the older Soldiers, the ones the two of them were worried about finding when they went to take care of Pierce.

What if he’d turned out like them? What if, after all that time, he came out depraved and _wrong?_

It’s a concept that terrifies Peter down to his bones, that HYDRA could take him and make him everything he’s never wanted to be, and over his shoulder, floating haphazardly into his ear, he tries to make sense of the reassurances Tony mutters: “You’re okay, promise. They don’t have you, and they’re never going to again.”

If they could sap his strength and his verve to pick him apart just because they could, what would stop them from cracking his mind open just as easily?

“I hate them,” he whispers into Tony’s shoulder, hoarse but not lacking fervor. “I _hate_ them. Why do they get to _do_ that to people? Why do they think it’s right?”

“I don’t know, Pete, I’m sorry,” he murmurs back, and even though it’s not an answer, Peter understands. It’s hard to find an explanation for that kind of latent cruelty, and in the absence of one, they hold onto each other.

After a few minutes, Peter asks another question. “If—if Bucky hadn’t come in time, hadn’t found us, do you think I’d have turned out like you two or the—”

He tries to say it, but the words won’t come.

Tony’s fingers toy kindly with his hair, the warmth of his body screaming safety to Peter’s psyche.

(Tony has never turned against him this close together.)

“The others?” he finishes for him.

Peter nods.

Tony shakes his head. “No, of course not. You’d have been better than me or Bucky by a long shot. Definitely nothing like them. They were always HYDRA—nasty pieces of work even before the serum got involved.” A kiss lands atop Peter’s temple, and warmth suffuses from the spot like steel wool set aflame. “Even if they had made you like us, you would’ve fought them every step of the way, and no matter how hard they tried to get it out of you, you’d still be good.”

It doesn’t work, considering they’re already pressed chest to chest, but Peter tries to move closer as he speaks: “You’re good, too, you know.”

Silence.

It’s kind of hard from his position tucked under Tony’s chin, but he finagles his elbow into his side in a light jab. “You are, even if you don’t believe it.”

“I’m trying to be, how’s that?”

Peter hums, a low, short sound. It’s not perfect, but it’s progress. “I’ll take it, for now,” he replies, and he doesn’t move to sit on his own again, content to trace aimless patterns into the fabric of Tony’s shirt until another thought comes to mind “They have other enhanceds, don’t they?”

He remembers the doctors talking about it, on occasion, that when their bodies gave out, HYDRA fed their remains to the labs for examination, and he clenches his eyes shut at the macabre image.

Tony nods. “I was helping to train them, but I’m not sure how many are left. They seemed weak by the time they got to me, half-wild.”

Peter’s heart twists at the visual that provides, blank faces hopelessly outmatched against someone instructed to rip them apart, but he keeps talking. “Do you think SHIELD will go back for them?”

(If they don’t, Spider-Man wouldn’t be able to rest knowing no one was coming to save them.)

“If I have anything to say about it, yes. I’m sure I can convince Fury to take a few future human weapons off HYDRA’s hands.”

Peter lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

(If SHIELD didn’t go, Spider-Man would try, but Spider-Man is scared.)

“That’s nice to know,” he murmurs, which doesn’t begin to cover it. Those long months of thinking no one was coming, that no one would ever know what happened, were the worst of his life. He can’t imagine living an entire existence like that, not even having the comfort of knowing, however far away, there was someone else in the base interested in protecting him.

Peter’s voice gets smaller with his final, more selfish inquiry. “Do you think SHIELD will help me be Spider-Man again?”

(Spider-Man might be scared, but Peter wants to soar again.)

And Tony responds with more steel in his tone than with anything else he’s said so far, resolute and bracing where Peter is vulnerable. “If they don’t, I will.”

(Tony hasn’t forgotten HYDRA’s plans for Peter or how Rumlow said, at rock bottom, he screamed for his help. He couldn’t be there then, but he always will be now.)

//

_LONG ISLAND - 1990_

The boy invites his best friend to a gala.

“It’s going to be super boring, but there’ll be alcohol and decent food,” he proposes, grin wide.

(Even if Rhodey wasn’t a fan of either of those things, he’d agree for the manic touch to the expression, pleading even though it isn’t supposed to be.)

“You’re paying for my suit,” Rhodey agrees, and the boy waggles his eyebrows from where he sits on the couch, licking salt off his fingers from the bowl of popcorn they’re sharing.

“No, _Howard’s_ paying for your suit,” the boy replies and is grateful that, per usual, Rhodey doesn’t say anything about the fact that he prefers to call his father by his first name.  
  


Rhodey rolls his eyes, then, and the boy lunges across the couch to wipe his still-damp fingers on his shirt while he shouts in protest.

The boy loves Rhodey for a lot of reasons, but the fact that he can be as _annoying_ as he wants without fear of consequence never gets old. He wishes the rest of the people in his life were more like him at the gala because, truth be told, while he invited him in part because he’d like _someone_ interesting to talk to at the hours-long affair, the other half of it is that his father will control himself around others for the sake of appearances. If he stays at Rhodey’s side for the night, there’s no way he can get his ass chewed.

(Rhodey’s figured out that much, but he doesn’t mind. If it makes the boy happy, makes him feel safe, he’s not going to complain.)

At the event, the boy’s dress shirt is too tight around his throat, but that could also just be the fact that he’s sitting with Rhodey at the same table as his father, and if his father doesn’t like Rhodey—

No. It doesn’t matter what the boy’s father thinks of Rhodey. The boy would sooner face his father’s wrath than turn his back on the only person who’s ever liked him at face value, so he sips the water he’s planning on replacing with champagne as soon as the adults have their backs turned.

Rhodey, at least, is good at small talk. He’s charming and polite and everything the boy isn’t, and he’s so grateful he agreed to come. It’s the least he can do to grab him another drink, and the boy stands, reassured that his father is occupied speaking with Rhodey and the buffer he provides as someone else for his father to focus on.

(The boy doesn’t know about the conversation that elapses then, the calculated questions the boy’s father poses about Rhodey’s background, his plans for the future, his relationship with his son, followed closely by similar digs from his business partner—Obie, the boy calls him.)

The boy comes back, having surreptitiously swapped the grape juice Rhodey was sipping for the champagne he’s yet to get himself. 

(Rhodey takes a sip, looks around the table, and decides he doesn’t care much for the boy’s father or Obie, not at all, and he’s glad when they leave to speak with others.)

As for the boy, when his supervision disappears, a glint comes into his eyes that spells trouble, and he drags Rhodey to the bar. “We’re going to make tonight way, _way_ better,” he announces, though he quiets his voice so as not to attract attention.

“You’re underage at a public event, and your dad is barely across the room,” Rhodey attempts to reason with him, but judging by the lack of substance to his voice, the boy already knows he’s won.

“Four tequila shots, if you would,” he orders when they come up to the bar.

 _“Tony,”_ Rhodey hisses, but though the boy’s heard the expression _it’s a marathon, not a race,_ if he’s supposed to play nice for the rest of the evening, he’s going to need a hell of a head start. 

“It’s nothing new for anyone,” the boy assures him through a winning smile as the bartender visibly considers the ramifications of giving a sixteen-year-old hard liquor, “and we’re splitting them. It’ll be fine.”

Rhodey still looks skeptical. In his defense, the boy knows that drinking as much as he does, as much as his father does, is bad, but he trusts Rhodey to pull him back before things go too far.

(Maybe more importantly, he’s also thinking of the weapon designs his father has been demanding, the fact that his butler is sick, and that everyone at the event only wants to talk to him in the hopes of getting into his family’s good graces.)

He tosses a fifty at the bartender to sweeten the deal, and sooner rather than later, they clink their glasses together and welcome the burn sliding down their throats.

“No more,” Rhodey insists when the shots are done, burping subtly into his fist. “You know that tequila and I don’t mix.”

‘Whatever you want, honey bear,” the boy assures him, though he’s already ordering a cocktail for himself that _looks really, good, okay,_ in Rhodey’s words, which is the excuse he gives when he gets one too.

And if the night ends with them both piss drunk and dancing so, so badly around an empty room elsewhere in the building to the faint sounds of the party that drift down the hall, if they both think _this is the best friend I’ve ever had_ and grin like wolves as they dare each other into performing increasingly illustrious moves, if they both wake up with the worst hangovers imaginable, it’s worth it for every second they get to spend together.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

Two days after telling Peter what HYDRA had planned for him, Natasha comes through the door of the Parker apartment dressed like a particularly fashionable secretary, pulling bobby pins out of the bun she’s put her hair in. “You have a press conference tomorrow,” she proclaims, and her red hair falls to settle above her shoulders like a wildfire.

Tony sets down the mug of coffee May offered to him before she left for work, part of SHIELD’s plan to uphold appearances for the sake of anyone who might be watching her.

“I have a _what?”_ he asks.

It’s just them around for the conversation, with Peter in the shower and the others up to various activities to make sure HYDRA isn’t trying anything, and Tony isn’t sure he heard her right.

“You have a _press conference tomorrow,”_ she repeats, louder _and_ slower in her enunciation the second time around.

Tony glares, and she comes over to try and take a sip of his coffee. He yanks it away from her touch, leaving her fingers reaching for air. “Uh, _no,_ get your own,” he protests and pulls the mug to his chest protectively.

She leans in, glowering back. “I’ve spent the past week dealing with the best paid, most pompous, assholish lawyers in America so that you can be a businessman again. Let me have some coffee.”

Tony hates that she has a point, and he watches her relax onto the couch that he’s getting more comfortable sitting on by the day as she takes a long sip. When she hands the mug back to him, she leans her head against the couch to stare at the ceiling. “We have a cover story picked out for you—notecards and all that to give you too,” she explains. “It’ll mention the kidnapping, but SHIELD came up with some bullshit about you having amnesia from a blow to the head to explain why it took so long to get you back in the limelight and that you were trying to get in contact with Stark Industries at the time of Stane’s death. There’ll be no mention of your enhancements or HYDRA. As far as the public will know, you’re not a bigger threat than the average billionaire.”

Tony barks a laugh at that, the thought that he’s just another spoiled kid grown up and gotten rich off their parents’ money. “And I only get a night to rehearse my lines?” he complains, though the words lack heat.

Natasha snorts. “As if you haven’t already memorized what I just said.”

Once again, she has a point, but Tony’s never had to pretend to be anything like himself before. It’s a little daunting, not that he’d ever say as much, but Natasha must sense the oddity in what she’s asking of him. She grabs his hand to bring the coffee to her lips without touching the mug herself, and then her hands rise to rub her temples. “Just pretend it’s another mission,” she advises him. “No failure allowed; all eyes on you.”

Tony considers that. There won’t be a handler for this, true, but he can imagine the punishment for not being convincing, all the extra hoops he’ll have to jump through to clinch his full revenge: taking control of the company he was sold for. It makes it smoother, more clinical, the way she describes it, and Tony nods. “I can do that,” he agrees, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha smile.

//

_CAMBRIDGE - 1991_

In the year after the gala, the boy loses, and Rhodey watches him drink more and more. There’s gin when his butler passes—the man’s favorite—and vodka when the boy, bleary-eyed and with tear-stained cheeks, starts talking about making a new form of intelligence with Jarvis’s voice—not the boy’s favorite, but cheap and what they had on hand.

When he’s at the apartment, Rhodey tugs the bottles away and replaces them with water, taking care of his best friend when he won’t do it himself.

The boy’s always had a tendency to fall back on alcohol, but it wasn’t until Rhodey saw him grieve that he realized the extent of it.

(The boy’s always had a tendency to fall back on alcohol, and that’s a well-publicized fact.)

However, the boy’s butler dies towards the beginning of the year, and in the months that elapse, Rhodey nudges him towards a healthier state of mind, cracks stupid jokes to make him smile, drags him to class even when he tries to bodily resist going.

_“I already know everything! I don’t need to show up!”_

_“You’ve been in the apartment for five days straight. You’re going to class.”_

And it works. Slowly, the boy comes back to himself, gives Rhodey stupidly extravagant gifts for taking care of him, finds joy instead of distraction in his work, writes back to his mother and his aunt when they send him letters.

(Rhodey still doesn’t like Obie or the boy’s father, but the two women are better, even if he’s not sure they’ve taken the time to look at the extent of Howard’s behavior toward his son.)

Rhodey has his best friend, and the boy has his Rhodey.

Then, he goes home for Christmas break, and Rhodey holds him through the funeral. He locks Rhodey and his aunt out of his house the day after, no matter how long they pound on the door or call the house to and beg him to let them in. And Rhodey _knows_ the drinking is bad again, has been told the state the boy’s aunt found him in as he tried to write a eulogy, but the boy won’t talk to them.

At two on a cold, January afternoon, Rhodey gets a call from the boy’s aunt, and when she tells him that his best friend is _gone_ , the phone falls from his hand.

 _No, no, no, no,_ he thinks— _screams_ , though his lips can’t seem to move—but while the police, even federal agents, turn the Stark mansion inside out, question anyone and everyone vaguely suspected of having a hand in things, he’s nowhere to be found.

(Even after his disappearance, the boy’s tendency to fall back on alcohol is a well-publicized fact.)

Obadiah, who takes over the company, states in an interview that he thinks the boy had too much to drink and wandered off, got himself into trouble.

Rhodey has to turn off the TV at the apartment he used to share, burying his face in the pillow the boy used to take every time they camped out in the living room together.

 _“It’s the softest!”_ he always insisted.

(It still smells like him.)

Obie’s explanation just doesn’t make sense, and it makes Rhodey’s skin crawl to think that someone who’s known the boy longer than him can’t see it. Yes, the boy could get out of control, but doing so was nearly always a result of someone pushing him into it—people with greedy hands and greedier eyes, people who Rhodey has threatened to throttle on multiple occasions. 

The boy, when drinking alone—especially drinking alone out of grief—was all quiet tears and slurred musings directed at the ceiling. Even at parties, he never went far from everyone else. 

The boy was the object of everyone’s attention or content to suffer in silence, never a mix, and the careless version of him Obadiah believes in never existed, no matter what the rest of the world thinks.

Rhodey cries into his best friend’s pillow, mourning the only person he’s ever met who just clicked into his life like he was always meant to be there.

(At the same time, the boy screams into thin air, still refusing to cooperate despite the _achefireagony_ enveloping him whole.)

Eventually, Rhodey picks himself up, goes to work with the Air Force and rises through their ranks with unprecedented speed. And still, every year, he goes back to Long Island at the end of May, sits at a headstone with an empty casket beneath it and tells his best friend what he’s been up to, everything that’s changed since his last birthday.

_(“I knew the military wasn’t all that after I dared you to hack the Pentagon, but really—”_

_“—and Obadiah got a hold of me, and he kinda’ skeeves me out still—”_

_“Jesus, I miss you, Tones.”)_

The years slip by, and as Rhodey turns thirty, forty, he imagines seeing the boy grow into a man alongside him, watching his features mature as he unleashed the potential Rhodey always knew he had in him, no matter how often Howard told him it wasn’t worth anything.

And in the end, while Rhodey isn’t particularly saddened by Obadiah’s death, the news that Stark Industries is hosting a press conference in a few days to announce the company’s plan for the future is interesting enough to make him think of a boy he used to know and decide to tune in.

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

Tony can hear the murmuring of reporters, can feel the buzz of anticipation, and yet—

“Am I doing the right thing?” he murmurs to Bucky, who’s helping him adjust his tie. The suit is stiff, uncomfortable in a way that he’s unused to but that isn’t entirely unfamiliar, either.

Without missing a beat, he nods. “You deserve this,” he assures him, eyes flicking around the room to Steve, Sam, Natasha, and Peter, who are discussing amongst themselves in a conversation Tony chooses to not listen to. “You’re a genius, and as soon as you shut down weapons manufacturing—” Another part of the takeover that’s sure to turn some heads, but Tony is done killing for anyone else’s profit, including the American military’s. “—you’re going to make something incredible.”

“But—”

“You’re already here,” he cuts him off.

“But what if I mess up?” he hisses, hoping that Peter and Steve are too busy talking to listen in. “I’m—you _know_ the things I’ve done. Should I be trusted with something this huge? This important?”

Bucky stares, his blue eyes Tony knows so well full of understanding, and he clamps his organic hand on his shoulder. That alone is grounding, the support Tony needed when he went for Stane and what he still appreciates now, but then his metal arm comes up too, tugging him into an embrace.

It’s funny, when Tony thinks about it. Despite how they’ve grown back into themselves, he’s somehow forgotten that something like this can pass between two former Soldiers, not just the people they’ve surrounded themselves with.

Bucky’s hold is tight but not suffocating, a steady, dependable pressure from all sides, and when he pulls back, he keeps his hands on Tony’s arms. “You’ve got this. I know you do, even if you don’t think so, and so does your kid.”

“But what if I _don’t?”_ Tony can’t help but ask.

“Then we’ll pull you back,” he swears, and it’s exactly what Tony needs to hear. Bucky’s hand rises, flicking a stray hair into place despite the gel otherwise coiffing the rest of it into a slick, uncharacteristically charming style.

From the stage, Tony can hear the clacking of heels. Virginia Potts, who has been a chief force in making his reintroduction to the company go smoothly, clears her throat and begins her introduction. “Stark Industries thanks you all for coming here today,” her calm voice rings out from the other side of the door, and as Bucky lets go, Peter nudges up to Tony’s side, squeezing his hand.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to when Tony can look into his big, brown eyes and see all the faith he has in him, and as his cue draws near, as Peter lets him walk away, he spares one last glance back at everyone who’s, for some reason, decided he was worth the effort to help: Sam, Steve, Natasha, Bucky, and Peter, all looking nothing but encouraging.

He takes a deep breath in, and then, from Virginia—

“It is my pleasure to introduce the blood heir to Stark Industries and our next chief executive officer, Tony Stark.”

Tony pushes the door open and into his future, and the room explodes into noise.

(Watching from a base in Afghanistan, Rhodey sees his best friend come back to life.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey time babey!! Also, in case you didn’t catch it, the mention of Bucky and Tony burning something they won’t tell Peter about was them burning Bucky’s trigger words. It’s definitely a private thing for them, hence the secrecy, but the deed has been done. : )
> 
> Also! You might have noticed, but this fic now has a set amount of chapters because I finished it! I will continue to upload on a weekly basis due to the need for editing time, but the rough draft is all done and clocks in at a little over 140k with 25 chapters in total. That’s absolutely insane to me, and what’s even crazier is that people have stuck around this long to see this story develop—as always, thank you so much for reading and especially for commenting. The support means the world to me. <3


	22. Chapter 22

_STARK TOWER - 2015_   


Tony steps backstage after his speech and a stupid amount of questions—

_“How do we know you’re the real Tony Stark?”_

_“Where have you been?”_

_“What do you have in mind for the new direction of Stark Industries?”_

—and is greeted by Peter barreling into his chest, a smile splitting his cheeks. Tony can’t find it in himself to mind the thunk of his body against the reactor or the acid that crawls up his throat as a result.

“You did great!” he exclaims, having watched, along with the others, the announcement play out on the monitor mounted on the wall.

Tony is uncharacteristically abashed by the compliment, and he rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “Yeah?” 

It’s one thing to be praised for the skills he already knows he possesses, but the press conference? That was like slipping into a second skin, something he didn’t know he had in him. It also felt a lot more like freedom than he expected, knowing all eyes were on him because he decided to make it that way, and he’s not quite sure how he feels about it.

Peter nods, and from their places a little farther away, so do the others.

“It was kind of badass,” Sam adds helpfully.

Tony grins at him. While he can’t say he’s always liked Sam, mostly due to his general mistrust of anyone who wasn’t Bucky or Peter when they first sprung him from HYDRA, he now usually enjoys whatever Sam contributes to a conversation. And in Sam’s defense, Tony can’t think of anyone he’s gotten along with at first contact.

(Not anyone he remembers, anyway.)

At any rate, he appreciates that Sam hasn’t held his surliness before he came around over him.

“Good,” he decides, already taking off his suit jacket and undoing a few buttons on his shirt. He understands needing to dress up, but it’s uncomfortable. After over a month of wearing whatever the hell he wants for the first time in literal decades, he’s more than ready to get back in something more casual.

Then, amidst the lingering commotion from the reporters, Virginia Potts strolls into the back room with the rest of them, cool, composed, and unfazed by the group of people with a kill count greater than her age. Granted, she doesn’t know about the kill count, but the lot of them are intimidating, or so they’ve been told by Peter when they tried to go get coffee and, quote, “scared the baristas”.

“Mr. Stark,” she calls, and Tony’s head darts up after a second he takes to process that _yes, right,_ he’s _Mr. Stark now._ “If you aren’t busy, now might be a good time for the tour of the Tower Miss Rushman and I agreed on.”

Tony blinks. He can read between the lines and assumes that Natasha used a fake name, but it’s still a touch jarring to remember the enormity of what he’s taken on. He knows that Stark Tower is where they held the press conference, that it’s large and integral to the branding of Stark Industries, but that it’s his now?

Aside from the light sitting in his chest, Tony hasn’t had anything tangible to call his own for as long as he can remember, and he realizes he’d very much like a tour of the Tower.

He clears his throat, noting the sweep of Virginia’s eyes over how disheveled he’s made himself since she last saw him a few minutes ago. He likes her, admires her for putting up with the colossal shift in power she’s witnessed firsthand, but while her observations are minute, they don’t escape the grasp of someone trained to notice them. “I’ll take you up on that, Miss Potts,” he agrees, matching her for the title she gives him.

He glances at everyone else. They’ve fed the company the lie that, due to Howard’s involvement with SHIELD, Tony has a security detail arranged from the agency. As for Peter, well, maybe the Iron Soldier wouldn’t have a good explanation for him being around, but Tony Stark, heir to Stark Industries, doesn’t need to provide one.

“Are you guys going to stay here, or—” he trails off. He doesn’t want to mention May or the hotel, is trying to keep details about the rest of them sparse, though he doesn’t know if that’s common sense or HYDRA protocol talking.

They all look amongst each other, and it seems as though Steve is going to serve as the mouthpiece of the lot when Virginia beats him to the punch. “If you all would like to relocate to the penthouse on the upper floors while Mr. Stark receives his tour, there are plenty of accommodations available.”

Tony blanches. When he looked at blueprints for the Tower before, he was mostly concerned with whatever was relevant to take Stane out, and the idea that someone would build something like that, for luxury, for comfort, just because they _could_ , is a little eye-opening. “There’s a penthouse?” he deadpans, in the end.

Virginia smiles, professional but candid. “There’s a penthouse,” she confirms.

“We’ll take it,” Peter decides for everyone, and Tony can’t help a smile of his own as he watches the quiet curiosity playing out over Bucky and Natasha’s features, the open wonder in Steve and Sam’s.

Super spies, assassins, and soldiers alike find a certain intrigue to sheer _wealth_ , Tony supposes.

Virginia nods, and her heels click a steady beat on the ground as she makes her way to the elevator. She’s objectively out of place in her pencil skirt and blazer while she’s surrounded by people clearly trained for combat, but she doesn’t appear the slightest bit bothered, not even in the close confines of the elevator. When the doors open after she scans her badge to let them up, she’s the only one who doesn’t suck in a breath at the room laid out before them.

Nearly everything is white, clean and sparkling and utterly impractical but seeming all the more imposing for it, from the furniture that looks like it cost as much as the building to the polished counters Tony can’t imagine someone actually eating on. What decor is present is minimalist, lacking as much feeling and color as the rest of the space, and the stainless steel appliances Tony sees out of the corner of his eye look untouched.

The first of them to gather their bearings is Bucky, who sums up the general attitude among them succinctly: “Jesus _Christ.”_

Virginia blows out a breath, and at the sound, Tony’s eyes dart from the decor back to her face. She looks decidedly _un_ impressed, to his surprise, and when she speaks, her dry commentary explains why. “Some glitzy interior designer out of L.A. did it, hence the _interesting_ result.” By Virginia’s tone, Tony intuits that by _interesting_ , she means _the worst thing I’ve ever seen_ , and despite the flashiness of the room’s initial impression, he’s inclined to agree, squinting against the brightness of it all. “Mr. Stane liked the idea of a home away from home, but he rarely used it, if at all. Feel free to make yourselves comfortable. As for you, Mr. Stark—”

She looks to him expectantly in place of finishing her sentence, and Tony figures the rest of them will be entertained easily enough exploring the extent of the penthouse. He steps back toward the elevator with Virginia, feeling, despite the alienness of the environment, entirely in control. “I’ll be back,” he announces, and Peter looks back over his shoulder and waves encouragingly before the doors slide shut, unconcerned by his exit.

(How did they manage to get here, Tony wonders as warmth blooms between his ribs, where they can trust that they’ll come back when they leave?)

“Those are some friends you have, there,” Virginia comments as they head down, working from the bottom up, Tony supposes.

He blinks, at the word she uses— _friends_ —and when he does, memories play behind his eyelids.  


_(All those days scaling Peter’s apartment building, sparring with Sam, turning to Steve to make sure Peter’s okay, trusting Bucky to pull him back, giving Natasha his coffee.)_

Tony swallows. He supposes she’s correct, but there’s something hollow to the notion that he can’t put his finger on, something that settles a little oddly. “Yeah,” he agrees anyway, shoving the peculiar emptiness aside. “They’re nice to have around,” he continues, and that’s the truth. However, he doesn’t want to talk about it more at risk of having to dodge questions he’d rather not face, and he changes the subject. “Are we headed to the basement?”

Virginia nods, tucking a ginger lock of hair behind her freckled ear. “Yes. The arc reactor is down there, same as the one in the California headquarters. People are usually interested in seeing it, but we can skip it if you aren’t.”

Tony raises a hand to rub just above the spot where his own reactor rests, shaking his head. “No, I’d like to see it.”

 _See it and gloat how his is better,_ but Virginia doesn’t need to know that.

The elevator chimes as they reach the lowest level of the building, and Virginia leads when they step out, confident as she begins to explain the significance of the reactor to Stark Industries, everyone responsible for its upkeep and monitoring.

Then, they run into a security guard posted in front of the door to the room where it can be seen in full. Virginia doesn’t appear fazed, but as she goes to swipe her card, the man’s hand darts out to cover the security pad and block her access. “Ma’am, this room is blocked off to all but authorized personnel,” he _chastises_ her.

It is only with years of training on how to control his emotions that Tony does not visibly react to that. One hard look at Virginia should be more than enough for one to see that the woman isn’t to be trifled with, much less spoken to like a child, and Tony resolves to let things play out as she sees fit.

Virginia smiles, the expression thinner and much less forgiving than it was when she flashed it at Tony. “I’m not sure if you missed the press conference just now, but I’m Mr. Stane’s former PA and current PA for Mr. Stark, our new CEO. I have authorization to enter _any_ area of the Tower, but thank you for your concern.” She finishes and blinks at the guard expectantly, and for a second, Tony has hope that the idiot will listen. After all, _Mr. Stark_ , as she calls him, is standing right behind her, but maybe the guy really did miss the press conference because he sighs, rolls his eyes.

“I’m gonna’ need to see some identification,” he insists.

And though the not-at-all-friendly smile stays fixed on Virginia’s features, she obligingly shows her ID.

He looks, squints and makes a big show of it despite that he hasn’t so much as glanced Tony’s way, and then he meets her eyes again. “What’s a lady like you doing all the way down here?” he asks, leaning in a little too far to be comfortable, and Tony considers pulling one of the several knives he has hidden under his dress clothes. 

(He’s well aware of the power of physical proximity, the intimidation of it— _Obie next to him on the couch, hands attaching a mask to his face, Pierce leaning in towards him while he’s strapped into the chair.)_

Virginia, however, has things covered. Without losing an ounce of her poise and despite the furious flush rising to her cheeks, she deposits her ID back into the breast pocket on her blazer and filches what Tony, courtesy of living with Natasha for a month and having limited bathrooms in the safe house, pins as a particularly small travel-size dry shampoo from her side pocket.

“How about we skip the conversation, and I’ll skip the pepper spray?” she suggests primly. 

She’s turned fully away from Tony, but he can imagine the fire dancing in her eyes, the same kind that belies her cordial tone.

Tony, tired of the discussion himself, steps fully out from behind her, not that he was ever really hidden from view, and his lips set in a similarly sharp smile. “Sounds good to me,” he concurs, and Tony doesn’t know if it’s the threat of pepper spray or their expressions that does it. Frankly, he doesn’t care. The guard gulps, nods, and steps aside, having gone pale very quickly.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Virginia scowls, the most intense expression Tony’s seen on her yet. “What an _ass,”_ she spits, tossing a scathing look over her shoulder as she strides closer to the structure that is the arc reactor, gigantic and circling in strips of electric blue above their heads.

“Can’t argue with that, but the pepper spray thing—” He can’t help the impressed smile that graces his lips. “—that was ballsy. I like it.”

Virginia swivels back towards him. Her manicured fingers still grip the dry shampoo, and she looks a touch embarrassed. “Oh—uh—that, well—” She looks down, pressing her lips together. “It _sounded_ good, you know, and he was really getting on my nerves—”

“Virginia’s a little formal, you know.”

“What?”

A furrow appears between Tony’s brows as he concentrates. “Let’s think, let’s think, let’s—” He snaps his fingers as it comes to him. “Pepper.”

_“What?”_

“It suits you,” he promises her before cocking his head at the arc reactor. He understands the principles of how it runs without needing to ask, though he doesn’t remember learning as much, but as far as he can tell, it’s not doing much for the building itself. Making a point of ignoring her protests, he poses a question: “This isn’t powering the Tower at all, is it?”

“I—no,” she admits, cutting off mid-tangent. “It’s more of a publicity stunt than anything. The version at the California branch is open to the public. This one was instituted to mirror it, give the expansion in New York a sentimental touch. There hasn’t been any advancement on the technology in thirty-some years.”

Tony hums, thinking of the doubts of the reporters back at the conference that someone so new was capable of taking the company and turning it around entirely, thinking of the proof sitting in his chest that Pepper’s wrong about lack of development on the reactor. “It’s going to,” he declares, “as soon as I can get the materials I need.”

Behind him, he hears what sounds like Pepper choking. “It’s going to power the _Tower?”_

Tony’s just met her, but she’s nothing like HYDRA, which makes him like her on instinct. HYDRA might have her professionalism but not her fire, her capableness without her sincerity, the very human faults he’s finding behind her veneer of being a flawless assistant.

He nods, decisive. “Sure is.” He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “Think I can’t do it?” he goads, voice sparking with a challenge.

Pepper raises a brow. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Mister Stark,” she intones, not unkindly.

It’s a convenient thing that Tony, whether he remembers it or not, has always loved to defy expectations.

//

_AFGHANISTAN - 1 HOUR AFTER THE PRESS CONFERENCE_

Rhodey strides towards the plane set to take him back to the States, a duffel stuffed with the essentials thrown over his shoulder as a captain on base tries to slow him down.

“Colonel Rhodes?”

Slow him down, and ask him what the hell he’s doing, to be specific. Rhodey tries not to be annoyed. In all his years of service, he’s never just _left_ like this. There’s a reason for that—he’s giving at least half a dozen protocols and policies the bird with every step he takes—but in all his years of service, his best friend has also never risen from the dead.

“I’m taking leave.”

He’s going to kick said best friend’s ass for not calling ahead.

(Right after he’s done processing that _Tony’saliveTony’saliveTony’s_ alive.)

He always figured he was too stubborn to die just like that, but after a few decades, he’d started to lose hope, to say the least, that he’d see him again, wherever he ended up that January.

“But—”

Rhodey blows out a harsh breath, making eye contact with the poor man trying to tell a full-bird lieutenant colonel what he can and can’t do. “I’m taking leave, Captain,” he repeats himself, and whatever he puts into his voice must convey exactly how much he doesn’t plan on stopping.

He has the backdoors to SI Tony gave him years ago—voice recognition, override codes, the works—that he’s made sure to maintain, he knows his way around the Tower, and most importantly, he’s James fucking Rhodes. No one in their right mind is going to get in his way, and as if on cue, the captain’s mouth snaps shut, though Rhodey feels his helpless eyes on his back as he walks up the ramp to the jet.

He’s coming for his friend no matter what anyone says, including Tony.

_(He’salivehe’salivehe’salivehe’s—)_

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

It’s three in the afternoon the day after the press conference when a robotic, monotonous voice rings out across the penthouse: _“An unidentified individual will arrive in Stark Tower’s private quarters in one minute.”_

From where he’s seated with Natasha and Pepper to try to dissect a mound of paperwork, every muscle in Tony’s body pulls taut.

He’s not satisfied with the AI wired into the building—it’s primitive, really, and that’s coming from someone forced to work with _HYDRA’s_ pitiable excuses for modern technology his whole career—but he hasn’t had time to update it to, say, be a tad more specific when essentially sounding an intruder alert.

_“An unidentified individual will arrive in Stark Tower’s private quarters in fifty seconds.”_

From the kitchen, around a mouthful of a sandwich, Peter. “Did that just say—”

“Who has the clearance to get up here?” Bucky snaps at Pepper, going from at ease on a ridiculously plush armchair to every bit the assassin HYDRA made him on a second’s notice.

Tony watches Natasha slide a knife out of the waistband of her leggings, and Steve and Sam gather in the living room quickly, as does Peter, swallowing his bite. 

All eyes are on Pepper, the reigning expert on all things related to SI, and she gulps, shaking her head. “I—I’m not sure. I’ve never been up here before now, so I’ve never heard that messa—”

_“An unidentified individual will arrive in Stark Tower’s private quarters in forty seconds.”_

“Someone remind me that I need to update the AI as soon as possible,” Tony groans. Whoever decided on the thing’s voice should be fired, for one, because it sounds like the kind of professor who cares _way_ too much about attendance, not that Tony knows how he has the background to make that comparison.

“Can we focus?” Natasha snaps, her tone scolding, and she glances at the ceiling. Tony thinks about telling her that she doesn’t need to try and look at the AI to use it, but he’s not sure that’d go over great at the moment. “Are they armed?”

_“I didn’t catch that.”_

“Are. They. Armed?” Natasha tries again, sucking in an irritated breath.

Silence. Everyone stills, listening in as the program thinks.

_“Yes, the individual has all of their limbs attached. An unidentified individual will arrive in Stark Tower’s private quarters in thirty seconds.”_

The groans are widespread, this time, but Steve’s voice rises above them. “Alright, alright, let’s calm down. I’m sure it’s no one we’re not capable of handling.” His eyes dart back to Pepper. “Could an employee have hit the wrong button in the elevator? Are they even in the elevator?” For his latter question, he looks up as Natasha did, and though Tony initially wants to berate him for involving the less-than-helpful AI, it works better the second time.

_“Yes, the individual is in the elevator. An unidentified individual will arrive in Stark Tower’s private quarters in twenty seconds.”_

Pepper shakes her head, squeezing her hands together in a motion that Tony places as something she’s doing to try to calm herself down. “No, you have to scan an ID with the proper level of clearance, otherwise it just takes you to the next highest floor accessible.”

“So, they hacked it?” Sam asks.

“If they went through the trouble of getting up here illegally, why not just bust through the window or something?” Peter adds.

Sam shakes his head. “Not all of us can—” He cuts off sharply under the weight of five pointed stares reminding him that they have a regular civilian in the room. “—fly,” he finishes after a long beat of silence.

_“An unidentified individual will arrive in Stark Tower’s private quarters in ten seconds.”_

“It doesn’t matter how they did it; they’re going to be here any second, and we’re gonna’ find out what they want,” Bucky intones, reaching for a blade of his own.

“You’re just going to _stab them?”_ Peter tries to protest.

Tony frowns. He’s partial to stabbing himself, but he’s pretending to be less dangerous than he truly is for the sake of maintaining his cover as Tony Stark, amnesiac businessman, not Tony Stark, ex-HYDRA assassin wanted in more countries than he can list.

“If they’re dangerous,” Bucky replies, nonplussed, though Tony follows his dagger-sharp gaze to the elevator.

_“Five seconds.”_

_Four, three, two, one,_ Tony counts down, and then, with an underwhelming ding, the doors slide open to reveal a dark-skinned man in military gear looking downright murderous.

 _(TonyknowshimhowthefuckdoesheknowhimTony_ knows _himheknowshimhe—)_

The man strides forward, his steps severe and fearless as his fists ball at his side. Tony is the closest to the elevator, and despite the shouting that envelops that room—

From Steve, “Don’t come any closer!”

Then Pepper, “What is going on?”

Finally, Sam, “Is that fucking Colonel _Rho—”_

—he doesn’t hear any of it. His world has narrowed to the size of the man cutting a heated path to him, and Tony’s mouth falls open in tandem with his eyes that widen to the size of dinner plates. He needs to say something, needs to calm the situation—Bucky really will stab the guy, for one—but the sight of the man, whoever he is, is a revelation so enormous it’s otherworldly, a power beyond comprehension reaching inside Tony and telling his heart that it’s been missing someone it should’ve never had to beat without.

The man stops with maybe a foot left of space between him and Tony. They’re about the same height, though the man has a slight edge on him with his combat boots, but the way the man stares at him, _into_ him, makes Tony go boneless. Not in the sense that he can’t support himself, no, but like if someone gave him a hard shove, he’d topple over.

 _(If he fell, though,_ his mind whispers, _this man would catch him.)_

The man’s eyes are dark and bore straight into Tony’s soul, pinning him in place as he stares him up and down, not bothering to hide the intensity of his examination. It’s almost like May’s judgment when he first met her, but not quite, because beneath his stony silence, something quavers in the not-quite-angry set of his brows, the line of his lips, that verges on pained.

And before Tony can gather his bearings to ask questions like _who are you_ or _what are you doing here_ or _why do I_ trust _you_ , the man’s voice cracks as he tugs Tony into his arms.

“You never called me back, you asshole.”

It’s nearly the same experience as when Peggy hugged him, the serene sense of _safety_ that settles over Tony like a favorite blanket, but this is gruffer than Peggy’s unconditional but more rose-tinted love. Tony doesn’t know how he knows, but he understands, in a vague, dawning way, that he is in the embrace of someone who has seen him at his worst and has kept caring anyway.

(It feels like coming home.)

Tony holds him back.

He holds him back and leans into the touch because there’s a voice murmuring to him that sounds suspiciously like his own but younger, more vulnerable: _“Rhodey,”_ the voice says. _“Rhodey’s here. How did I forget him? Oh God, I haven’t seen Rhodey in so_ long.”

(And Rhodey, having studied Tony, having seen his big, doe eyes and raven-feather hair look exactly as he imagined they might a decade ago, is thinking the same in reverse.)

Tony breathes in the smell of lemon laundry detergent and something else he used to know and breathes out a tiny reply, summoned from somewhere outside of himself, “Sorry, I got lost.”

Rhodey responds to that by tightening his grip enough to push a little air out of Tony’s lungs, and Tony takes a moment to be sure he’s not exerting any more force in return than an average human can comfortably handle.

The world beyond the two of them has fallen silent, and when, after what could be seconds or hours, the two of them separate, Peter’s voice shatters the quiet. “Tony?” he asks, “are you okay?”

Tony raises a brow in confusion. It was just a hug—why wouldn’t he be _okay?_ He loves Peter, but what the hell is he— _oh shit, he loves Peter._

That realization is enough to stop him in his tracks, something to compound the emotional whirlwind he’s already going through, but though he was going to ask Peter why he would pose a question with such an obvious answer, he understands his reason for concern as he raises a hand to touch a wetness that’s appeared on his cheeks.

His first instinct is to hope that no one’s seen, but it’s too late for that; _everyone’s_ seen, and aside from Rhodey, who’s looking around at their ragtag group but mostly at Steve, they’re staring at him like he’s grown a third head. Tony supposes that’s fair. He _hates_ showing weakness, and his second instinct is to look out for someone who’ll be coming to punish him for it.

But even though he tenses, even though he keeps an eye open for a wayward handler or guard sneaking up on him, all he finds are people he likes— _trusts._

Tears keep slipping quietly down Tony’s cheeks.

He takes a breath, clears his throat in an effort to seem more presentable despite that he can’t, for some reason, stop crying. “I’m fine,” he replies and is, mostly, not lying. It’s all just a lot and is happening very fast, and Tony realizes that maybe not being a Soldier anymore means being imperfect.

(It means being imperfect, and it means that that’s okay.)

“Let’s all sit,” he suggests, and his friends listen.

(Pepper used the word the day before, and Tony didn’t understand why it couldn’t feel quite right, but now, he can’t object.)

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

Tony cries for a surprisingly long time. It’s equal parts mortifying and cathartic, and the silent, steady stream of tears is, above all, utterly alien. He knows how to shout his emotions, fight them out of his system, even, if he doesn’t internalize them entirely. This soft, seeping flow of feeling, prompted by a puzzle piece he didn’t know he was missing clicking into place, is more strange than he knows how to describe, and he thinks its longevity is spurred mostly by Rhodey’s presence.

He cares for lot of them—Sam, Steve, Natasha, and most deeply, Bucky and Peter—but Rhodey—

There are parts of their story floating in his head—a room, dancing, a fire at the back of his throat—but he still can’t decipher it, not fully. The aura he emits is something different than anything they offer, and Tony’s best guess as to why is that Rhodey knew him before HYDRA. He knew the frail, still-growing version of him, the wild child he saw the day he watched the video Howard left for his son. He cared about him then, before he learned how to protect himself, and Tony inexplicably comprehends that his weaknesses are safe with him.

So he cries, not really getting why, and offers a close-lipped but sincere smile at Peter when he squeezes his hand. When his eyes dry, there are questions.

Rhodey starts, still in his military uniform but appearing relaxed at Tony’s side. “Not to call out the elephant in the room, but when the hell did you get involved with Captain America, Tones?”

Sam cuts in before Tony can give his answer. “Where did he find Steve? I have a better question.” He fixes Tony with a _look_. “When did you make friends with a goddamn full-bird lieutenant colonel?”

“And while you’re thinking of an answer that,” Bucky adds, having pulled up a chair and undeterred by Tony narrowing his eyes at him in warning, “how did you end up friends with someone this put-together and still come out a dumbass?”

Rhodey doesn’t bother to hide his laugh at that, and Tony glares at Bucky. Leave it to him to attack him while he’s on the back foot, already struggling with showing more emotion than he’s strictly comfortable with. He’s a jerk, and while he wants to say as much, he has a lot of people looking to him to sort this clusterfuck of a situation out.

He starts by blowing out a breath and scrubbing a hand across his face one last time, wiping away all the evidence of his lapse in composure. Then, he looks to Rhodey, his hand still in Peter’s, the rooted warmth from the action spurring him forward even as Peter sits quietly, content to let Tony sort himself out. “Would you believe that it’s a long story?”

Rhodey shakes his head. “It always is with you, isn’t it?”

They smile at each other, even if Tony doesn’t know exactly _why_ that little sentence makes him as happy as it does. And then, from close to the elevator— _when did she even get over there?_ —Pepper. “This seems like a personal matter, Mr. Stark, so I can just come back at a more conven—”

“Oh, don’t worry—you don’t need to go,” he informs her matter-of-factly.

Natasha, who has been fairly quiet, speaks up, then, at the same time as Steve. “She doesn’t?”

Tony rolls his eyes and hears Peter snort under his breath. “If she’s my PA, she’s going to find out eventually. You people don’t exactly fly under the radar.”

Natasha continues the argument. “Your whole backstory is classified.”

“Rhodey’s going to find out!”

(Faintly, Tony picks up Sam’s incredulity: “Did you just call _Colonel James Rhodes_ Rhodey?)

 _“Rhodey_ isn’t supposed to know anything, either, but I’m not going to be able to talk you out of telling him.”

“And you’re not going to talk me out of telling Pepper, so I don’t know why you’re trying.” Tony raises his head, motioning her over. “Come on. I want to get this started.”

Pepper listens but doesn’t look especially enthusiastic. “Didn’t you already air your life story out on national television?” she asks, though by the way her gaze darts around the room and the various individuals in it that pulled a weapon the second they thought there was a threat, he suspects she already knew something was up. Pepper’s a smart lady, after all.

Tony shrugs. “I lied on national television; there’s a difference.”

Pepper’s mouth falls open. _“You what?”_

“Like I said, it’s a long story.” Tony leans back on the couch, putting his hands behind his head in a deceivingly casual motion and ignoring the pain in his past for a moment where he can fully appreciate the life he has now. “I don’t remember a lot of it though, so it’ll be interactive—the rest of you will have to fill in the gaps.”

(Tony may not remember, but he has faith that the people around him will help him until he does.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I!!! Love!!!!! Rhodey!!!


	23. Chapter 23

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

The first week, even two weeks, Tony does okay. There are a million and one things to sort out with taking over the company, and suddenly, he’s booked from morning to night with meetings and tours and visits to the labs and more meetings. Everyone wants to know what Tony Stark can do, and he’s happy to show them.

Despite shutting down weapons production, he has ideas—like, a _lot_ of ideas—about arc reactor technology. After all, he’s gone the better part of two decades with his battery, and with all that time to stew, he’s come up with a few concepts to capitalize on. For starters, he has plans to run Stark Tower on its reactor—plans that, if everything goes according to schedule, will be completed within the month. On top of that, after _ages_ of looking at Bucky’s outdated arm, he has designs for prosthetics in the works that’ll blow anything already on the market out of the water.

 _(“He should try selling his stuff to one of the bigger companies. Like Stark Industries—they’ve done weapon production forever, but they’re supposedly looking into branching into other tech,”_ Peter said to Bucky months ago about the nameless man responsible for his arm, and oh, how these things come back around.)

During that time, the others stay close by, watching for any attack HYDRA might mount, but Tony doubts their ability to regroup so soon after Pierce’s death. HYDRA is stubborn, wily and vicious, but with a few of its key components knocked out of commission, it struggles to put itself back together.

Privately, Tony thinks, with no small amount of vindication, that if HYDRA knows what’s good for them, they’ll put two and two together about who struck back and killed one of their top dogs and leave him the hell alone. They don’t like to waste time on lost causes, anyway, and Tony’s thought about it; he’d rather die than go back into their custody, take the punishment they’d dole out and have everything wiped again.

He barely survived it once, seventeen and leaving just two people behind to miss him. The idea of abandoning all the people that have, for some reason, decided to like him, help him, and not even knowing it is unfathomable.

He doesn’t know how old he physically is, how much of his life he can really consider having lived. Do the years count, slipped numbly through his fingers? Nearly everyone else—Bucky being the exception—can track their own growth, but his face has narrowed, his body become more sure without him recalling how, just catching his reflection in a window he passed between missions and realizing _oh, I guess that’s me._

The lack of structure about something that should be so innate lurks at the back of his neck, an itch he can forget but that never quite goes away, and even still, he wouldn’t give up the bare bones of his memory for anything.

Whether he remembers or not, he’s grown, allowed some of the hardness he carries to flake away, and that’s invaluable development for someone who’s been frozen for so long.

So while he’d like to imagine that HYDRA has ruled out the possibility of reclaiming him, Bucky, or Peter, he can’t write them off entirely. Thankfully, he has a lot of people helping him keep an eye out.

Bucky and Natasha get restless staying in one place for too long, and either Sam or Peter usually text when they head out to sweep the area. For his part, Steve commutes a lot of the time between wherever Fury decides he wants to meet and the Tower, where everyone has been crashing, mostly because, even if Tony had to express order furniture for the surprising amount of empty bedrooms in the penthouse, it’s less expensive than housing and feeding four enhanceds via a hotel room.

(Mostly, that is, because though Tony isn’t going to be the one to admit it, has hardly even realized it for himself, it’s just nice to be around the group of them.)

Rhodey stays, too.

Tony tried to protest originally because he knows, now, from Sam’s awe, that he’s high-up in the military. “They need you,” he said. “These guys’ll keep me safe, I swear.”

But he’d just shaken his head. “You need me more,” he replied, and then, squeezing Tony’s hand in a motion that felt altogether natural and foreign at the same time, “and I want to make up for lost time as best as I can.”

Tony knew it was selfish to not make him go, but with his eyes glistening—also something he’d never admit to—with emotion, something tender unfolding behind his ribs, he couldn’t bring himself to push it.

When he brought it up with Peter, the kid, as usual, gave him more leeway than he deserved, laying out as Tony rubbed his back: “You haven’t gotten to have things for yourself in a really, really long time. If Rhodey wants to stay, why can’t he?”

(Tony’s already put quite a bit of the funding he now has available into synthesizing painkillers to help with the aftermath of HYDRA’s experiments, but it’s taking longer than he’d like.)

And Tony had frowned, explained that he wasn’t more important than Rhodey’s job—which he shouldn’t be able to abandon on a dime, but Rhodey’s gotten up to a lot in the years that Tony was away—and that he shouldn’t need to be coddled. 

In response, Peter rolled to his side and looked him in the eye, an unfortunately effective method of making Tony listen. “You’ve been away from HYDRA for two months. I think everyone will forgive you if you keep some extra people around.” He even rolled his eyes, the punk, but what he said is food for thought.

Has it actually only been two months? It feels like eons, but then again, when was the last time he was awake and left to his own devices for that long? He can’t remember, he tells Bucky one night over a stack of paperwork, and Bucky nods.

“I think it’s better that way, though,” he replies, clenching and unclenching his metal fist like he does whenever he’s thinking.

Tony hums, scrawling his recently-memorized signature on a dotted line. “How?”

“Would you want to remember it all?”

_(Bodies and blood and beatings and battles and—)_

“Fair.”

He’s starting to tell Rhodey about everything, too. Of course, he got the rundown, even, with gunpowder in the line of gaze, asked if Pierce was dead when he first showed up, but there are little details—the out-of-body experience of losing one’s will, coming back to himself with Peter’s blood on his knuckles—that didn’t fit with the big picture.

A lot of their conversations—the private ones, anyway—pass in the early hours of the morning because Rhodey operates on a military schedule and Tony never fucking goes to bed. They sit on the too-white couch and nurse cups of coffee together, and if Tony is feeling especially human, he leans his head against Rhodey’s shoulder.

“We did this back then, too,” Rhodey tells him, taking a sip of his coffee with the world’s tiniest splash of cream in it.

(The first time Tony saw him make it, he had to sit down because _oh, he’s always done that.)_

Tony just holds his for the moment, letting the mug warm his palms. “Why?” he asks. 

Rhodey doesn’t look as hurt, nowadays, when he admits to forgetting things, but Tony still finds himself expecting a wince. He’s trying; he wants to understand the scope of their relationship he can feel just under the surface of his skin, waiting to be pulled free, but it’s taking time.

(Tony has a theory about why it’s so hard, but he doesn’t like to think about it.)

Rhodey laughs, though the sound is made a little rough by the fact that he’s not fully awake. “You used to go on lab benders. Regular benders too, honestly, but you’d show up early, looking like hell and wanting something to eat. If I wasn’t recovering with you, I’d be up to go running, and we sat like this in our dorm—the apartment, later.”

Tony mulls that over, closes his eyes and lets the scene Rhodey describes wash over him. He has to think, but he’s rewarded for his persistence. “We’d sit at the counter?” he asks. He thinks he has a hold of it, the exhaustion in his bones, the comfort of having his friend at his side despite it, and then—

“Yeah, usually. You remember the chairs?”

Tony frowns, his answer quick and passionate. “They weren’t _chairs._ They were barstools we found on the side of the road, and I refused to let you throw them out because they had character.”

Rhodey snorts. “They were the ugliest fucking things in the world.”

“And _that’s—”_

“—what made them so good. I know.”

Rhodey takes the words right out of his mouth, and that’s new. Tony’s lost more opportunities to speak to his muzzle than he can count, but this, he doesn’t mind.

(Rhodey smiles at him, at the argument they’ve probably had more than once before, and Tony thinks the reason it’s so hard to remember might be because he tried to forget someone who would’ve hated to see him become so cruel.)

Rhodey stays, and Peter listens, and May visits, and Pepper organizes, and Bucky watches, and Natasha patrols, and Steve leads, and Sam helps, and—

And somehow, Tony has found himself with a community, small and fractured strangely in some areas, but his nonetheless.

It works for a little, but eventually, Tony’s mind catches up with the company’s pace, finds his balance in the chaos of bureaucracy that he never had to deal with before, stuck firmly in a hands-on position. But Tony has been trained to distrust calm.

Three weeks in, Natasha, Steve, and Sam get orders from Fury to take care of a HYDRA base that’s confirmed to be housing enhanced prisoners. Naturally, Tony assumes he’ll be a part of that. It’s been made crystal clear to him, over the years, that he is meant to be a fighter before an inventor, so when they tell him as much, he asks when they’re leaving, only to have Natasha raise a brow. She’s come alone to find him in the lab he’s made his own since assuming the company.

 _“We’re_ leaving in two days. _You_ are staying put, along with Bucky.”

Tony blinks. “Run that past me again,” he demands, but his voice comes out flat, the emotion plucked from the words in his confusion.

“You’re not coming,” Natasha deadpans.

“I came last time.”

“Like Fury could’ve kept you out of it with Pierce involved.”

 _“Why_ am I being left behind?”

“Quit being dramatic. You’re not being left behind—you’re a recently liberated prisoner. You shouldn’t be going back into fieldwork without, at minimum, a proper psych eval. Pretty sure the only reason Fury hasn’t pushed for one yet is because he’s waiting to get some cash out of you before pissing you off.”

“I’m a highly-skilled combatant. I should be put to use.”

“We _don’t need you,_ Tony.”

Tony’s breath catches in his throat, and his eyes widen as the wrench in his hand crumples at the clenching of his fist. That? That right there? That’s a trigger he nearly forgot about, the terror of being unwanted and the threat of all-consuming, malevolent _cold_ meant to keep him safely away until he’s necessary again.

“Shit,” he breathes, the word strangled and near incomprehensible, and he leans back against the table he was working on with a hand hovering above his light.

(The hand doesn’t touch, doesn’t press. Iron can’t trust himself to be gentle with his second heart, not right now.)

He doesn’t know how to make himself calm down, so he does—says—the first thing that comes to mind: “Could you reword that?” he chokes out, trying to decipher the emotions wreaking havoc in his head, the balance between feeling safe in a space he’s made his own and the implications he instinctually finds behind Natasha’s words.

The hand not raised to his chest fumbles for another tool, something he can use to ground himself and remind himself that _he’s not there_. He comes up with a tablet, and that’s good enough because HYDRA never would’ve allowed him to have access to that unsupervised.

For her part, Natasha looks thrown at his panic but still staunch, firm in what she’s told him. “The only thing you need to do is rest—or at least, focus on the company. We’ll be fine on this mission without you.”

“But—” he tries to argue, has a hundred rebuttals on the tip of his tongue, but Natasha shakes her head, regurgitating part of what Peter said to him and he’s beginning to realize might have some merit.

“You’ve hardly been out for two months. You’re doing well, all things considered, but until further notice, you’re benched.”

Tony breathes in, breathes out of parted lips, his brows bunched in bemusement. He doesn’t know what to say, how to begin to react to the notion that he might be wanted for something other than what HYDRA trained him for.

(He _knows_ he’s a genius, knows not anyone could take control of a billion-dollar company at the drop of a hat, but how long has he operated under the assumption that he is a weapon? One made especially sharp by his wits, true, but made to kill before he was to question orders, prized for the serum running through his veins more than the mind he’s always had?)

“I don’t know how to rest,” he admits, and it feels like showing his underbelly, a spot dangerously exposed and easy to injure.

Natasha shrugs. “I didn’t either, at first. Still don’t, sometimes, but you learn.” Tony must look skeptical because she keeps talking after a moment’s pause. “Ask Peter for help, if you want. Rhodey or Sam might work, but the military isn’t very forgiving.”

Tony doesn’t need to ask about her thoughts on Steve or Bucky.

(He likes them both, but Steve wears his sense of duty like a laurel made of cement, and Bucky and Tony were sculpted from the same stone.)

“He’s been through his fair share, but he’s still a kid, still remembers how normal life looks. That’s—”

“Enviable?”

“I was going to say valuable, but that applies too.” Her gaze goes to where Tony’s palm rests on the tablet, and he follows it, realizing that most of the tension from a moment ago has left his body. Tony was concerned about showing his soft spots, but quietly, unexpectedly, Natasha lifts the veil to one of hers, too. “You’re doing better than I did, but you don’t want to mess it up.”

Tony meets the cool jade of her stare, and it speaks of experience, something twisted and dark that Tony knows he’ll probably never hear more about. He nods. “That seems reasonable,” he acquiesces, but his mind is still spinning.

 _Rest_ , she said, and while Tony doubts he’ll find himself a conventional interpretation of the word, it sounds nice.

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

Peter’s been keeping it together, mostly. Like when Tony suggests taking him to a few appointments to work on getting medicine that will work with his metabolism—he doesn’t break any of his fingers when he, embarrassingly, asks to hold his hand while people he doesn’t know come at him with needles and questions and lab coats that are all just a little too familiar for comfort.

That’s an improvement from the last time he was around a lot of doctors, back at the safe house, the first day or two after his rescue. Tony never cried out—and Peter hates to think of how he acquired the pain tolerance to keep from doing so—but Peter was still horrified to see the unnatural crookedness to his fingers when their hands broke apart.

“They’ll heal in a few hours—a day at most,” Tony had reassured him, and he seemed so nonplussed, it was easy to let the incident fall to background noise amongst all of the other comparatively worse experiences he’d had recently.

But now he’s in the same city as May, and Tony’s taken care of Pierce, which means there’s not another goal to look ahead to, and Peter’s had a lot of time to himself to think.

So he remembers Tony’s broken fingers, tries to catnap but wakes up with his heart pounding and awful memories branded onto the insides of his eyelids.

Tony’s paid for a tutor, has even gotten in contact with his school and found out what all he’s missed, but it’s hard to find meaning, importance in calculus and biology and everything else when he’s still thinking of the fate he narrowly avoided.

(Tony’s told him before that it’s no use torturing himself with the idea of _what if Bucky never came for them_ , but Peter’s mind runs a million miles an hour and hasn’t gotten the memo.)

Peter’s lips press together from where he’s staring down at his textbook. Despite how long he’s been gone, the concepts themselves aren’t too hard. The problem is that he can’t focus on them, not when he feels so far removed from his former self, still, and amongst the snarl of emotions forming in his stomach, frustration— _anger,_ comes out on top.

He should be better. He knows school is important, logically, knows the life he left behind is, too, but what does it _matter?_ It all seems so small in the scheme of things, knowing the problems, the _threats_ afoot in the world.

The Peter of a few months ago wouldn’t struggle with this. He wouldn’t have to set his pencil down and take deep breaths to stave off memories that pre-HYDRA Peter couldn’t have dreamed up in his worst nightmares. He might complain about his schoolwork, procrastinate with a scroll through social media, text Ned—

Shit.

He hasn’t even thought about Ned, about anyone other than May and Tony and the others he sees every day, and he realizes, vaguely, that his mind has compartmentalized things nicely for him: thoughts necessary for survival, to get through the day, and everything else.

Peter cares a lot about Ned, but he’s fallen into the latter category because friends are good, yeah, but they aren’t what made him remember to keep fighting back with HYDRA. 

Laying on icy tables and watching scalpels pass in and out of the corners of his eyes, Peter thought of May, of Ben, of the duty he had to return to his home and protect the people there, of the duty he had to Tony—Iron, then—to get him out.

Pre-HYDRA Peter cared about extracurriculars and good grades and the simple joy of hanging out with friends, but post-HYDRA Peter is concerned with when May’s going to visit next or where Tony is in the Tower.

_(Why can’t he care about the same stuff anymore?)_

It’s not _fair_ that the world chewed him up and spat him back out like this, a chipped, debased version of his former self.

Peter shoves the book away, watches it slide across the table as he clenches his jaw. He needs to blow off some steam, and he moves towards the elevator, which will take him to the makeshift gym Tony’s set up on another floor of the private quarters. It’s not much now, he says, because he has plans to more luxuriously furnish it later, but in comparison to SHIELD’s facilities, the bare rooms he sparred with Bucky in, it works.

Peter goes to the punching bags first. Steve likes them, too, and he gets why.

_Slam._

His knuckles crash into its surface. It doesn’t hurt, isn’t even his full strength, but the bag swings back a few feet, farther than a normal human could push it. When it comes forward, Peter hits it again.

_Slam._

He’s made a fist the way Bucky and Tony taught him, uses his momentum properly and moves his arm the right way, too. Paying attention to those details is nice, helps take his mind off whatever’s bothering him when he gets like this.

_Slam._

The rhythm of his punches is soothing, a lullaby plucked along the sweat of his brow, his hot breaths puffing into the air. The physicality of it, the freedom he has to move where he wants, is a visceral reminder that he’s free now, can fight back and move however he likes.

_Slam._

(Peter’s crying.)

_Slam._

The tears roll down his cheeks messily, seeping into the corner of his mouth, tracking towards his jaw in hot rivulets of _frustrationshamepain._

_Slam._

It’s not fair.

_Slam._

It’s not _fair._

_Slam._

Can’t he be a kid again? Doesn’t he deserve it after all of this? Isn’t he owed the enjoyment of LEGO sets and Star Wars, the things he used to love?

_Slam._

His mouth crumples with it, the realization that though HYDRA might not have him anymore, they still have tendrils wrapped around his throat, his heart. Peter can _feel_ a specter of the passion he used to have for simpler things, but it’s not like it was before, and he just doesn’t understand _why._

The bag breaks off the chain, and Peter watches it fall. Steve has the same problem, hence the extras laying nearby, but he doesn’t want them, can’t take them. 

Peter stumbles back, and then he sinks to his knees, shoving the heels of his palms into his eyes. He wants to stop crying. It would be easier to act like everything is okay if he could, but the tears keep coming, so Peter stops trying to wipe them away. He wraps his arms around himself, trying to hold it together, but though he’s mourned before, this is different.

This is acknowledging that something has irreversibly changed, and it undoes him.

Peter doesn’t know how long he sits there. It was late when he came to the gym in the first place, but he was waiting for Tony to finish up his work so he could talk with him before he went to bed.

It’s strange, now, living in the Tower. Peter does school while Tony works, though he’s been told at least five times by now that he’s welcome to interrupt him with anything he might need. Peter keeps that in mind, but for the most part, he tries to leave him alone, let him get settled in an unfamiliar environment, even if Tony seems to be taking to it like a duck to water. There’s always someone else around, anyway, but right now, Peter wants Tony.

He goes back into the elevator, eyes swollen and tear tracks drying on his cheeks, and then he shows up outside his bedroom door. His hand is raised to knock, but Tony, despite Pepper’s insistence that he _“fixes his god awful sleep schedule”_ , must still be awake and able to hear his breathing, still a touch ragged.

The door opens to reveal him in his pajamas, and Peter doesn’t ask before moving to embrace him. If it were anyone else, he might be embarrassed by the clinginess, but Tony has seen him at his most vulnerable.

(And if Peter likes the security of his hugs, the faith he has that he’s safe because if Tony wasn’t himself, if they were anywhere dangerous, the affection would never pass between the two of them, that’s a secret that can stay between the two of them.)

Tony’s arms fall around him easily, and he doesn’t question it, just leads him to his bed so they can sit. Peter lets his head fall against his chest, listens to his heartbeat, and given time, he finds the words he wants to say. “I’m messed up,” he mumbles.

He can feel Tony tense, his fingers pausing from where they’ve been carding through his hair, but his voice comes calmly. “Why do you think that?”

Peter flinches, leaning further into him. “I’m not a normal kid, now. I’m not excited about the things I used to be; I can’t even think about my best friend because it doesn’t feel like he fits with who I am now.” Tony doesn’t say anything, and he keeps talking. “I just—none of it means anything now. I have you, and I have May. It feels like—like I have all the stuff I need to survive, and that’s all I can think about, now, keeping everything I have to have close. That and HYDRA.”

“Kid, you can’t blame yourself for not being able to enjoy menial stuff just yet.”

“But I want to!” he whispers fiercely, looking up to meet Tony’s eyes, which are crinkled with something Peter can’t read. “I’m _trying_ , and I still can’t. What if I never can? What if I’m just—just—”

(Just a lab rat, a spider they broke the legs off of one by one to watch him writhe.)

“You’re not,” Tony promises, soothing a hand down Peter’s arm. “You’re so much more than anything they said, and if your best friend is anything like you, he’ll get it.” He brushes some of the hair out of Peter’s eyes, and Peter sags into his chest, boneless in the depths of his outburst. “Speaking as someone who forgot about the people important to them, it’s not too late to reach out. You’re only fourteen. You have time.”

“I have time?” he mumbles. Rationally, he knows what Tony means by saying it, but the words seem distant, looming and vague.

“It takes time,” Tony amends, probably having sensed his confusion. “I’ve been talking with Natasha, and she said the same thing you told me—it’s only been a few months.” He pitches his voice a little higher in what Peter places as a bad imitation of Natasha. _“The only thing you need to do is rest.”_

Peter hums. 

“She said you might be able to help me with that, but I think it’d be better if we figure it out together.”

(Tony holds Peter, and though he knows Natasha knows what she’s talking about, he also thinks she forgets what it is to be a kid with soft edges—an experience she didn’t get.

Peter can help him, but Tony can’t act like it’s okay to place all of that weight on his shoulders.)

Peter’s fingers clench in the fabric of his shirt, and despite the unrest still flipping around in his heart, he feels warm—safe. “Me too,” he agrees.

With Tony at his side and them able to do as they please, Peter feels like they can do anything.

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

Slowing down is hard.

There’s static under Tony’s fingernails, something whispering in his ear that he can’t stop, isn’t allowed to. He needs a fight, needs a mission.

When the whisper grows to anything more than conversational volume, he searches for someone to talk over it with, and when that doesn’t work either, he leaves.

Pepper took the news that he was the one responsible for Obadiah’s death surprisingly well, given the reasoning behind why he did it. He expected more—fear, anger, maybe at being deceived—but overpowering that was her horror at what her former employer had done.

“I didn’t know,” she’d whispered hollowly, a hand covering her mouth as she sat with the rest of them, and Natasha had been the one to reach out to her, place a hand on her shoulder. It’s been an . . . interesting start to their professional relationship, but while she steps, on occasion, a little more carefully around him, as far as Tony can tell, she doesn’t begrudge him for anything. Instead, she is quite possibly the best assistant Tony thinks the world has ever known.

So when he needs to skip out for a bit, Pepper, bless her soul, usually covers for him: _“Mister Stark will be out for the rest of the day, unfortunately, developing new product in his lab,”_ she says—or something equally untrue but nothing one of the assholes on the board is going to call her on. Whether that’s because they fear her or him is debatable, but it doesn’t matter. Tony is incredibly grateful he caved and let her in on everything going on—admittedly, with a few NDAs Natasha had her sign—and in return for her service, he tries not to flake too often.

When he can’t take it anymore, though, he has a few options. His first is to peruse the city, taking in the sights, relearning the world for his pleasure rather than an assignment. That’s nice, and what’s even better is the release of yelling at the people of New York City, who all drive like douchebags.

Tony doesn’t have a lot of healthy outlets for his anger, but there’s something cathartic about yelling profanities through the windshield of his ridiculously expensive car, knowing he’s not really hurting anyone.

(He suspected he had a penchant for pretty cars the day he killed Stane, but now he has time to properly enjoy them, another thing he didn’t realize could be nice.)

Peter comes with, sometimes. He knows Queens better than Manhattan, but Tony doesn’t mind the drive to his favorite places, not even when they walk in the door of his favorite bodega and the sight of the man at the register—Delmar himself, Peter explains later—makes Peter burst into tears because _he just didn’t realize how much he missed stuff like this._

Tony likes what makes Peter happy, always has, and he doesn’t mind.

Once, tears would have scared him, but there are worse things than upsets in what Tony has reluctantly cataloged as recovery.

(He likes that word, _recovery_ , too, because it means seeing Peter happy more often.)

Tony doesn’t have locations that are important to him, not like Peter does. They drive by his school, his favorite park when he was a kid, and he has stories to tell.

“If no one’s watching, I can jump over the gate,” he swears with a grin, to which Tony raises a skeptical brow because _he’s enhanced, not a bouncy ball, Jesus._

“I fell off the monkey bars there and knocked a few of my baby teeth out,” he adds a few minutes later, and Tony does not doubt that one bit, much to Peter’s chagrin.

Instead, Tony has people, walking, talking memories that are much more reliable than any place he might remember, though most have faded to concrete halls and the shape of his cell, and one weekend, the itch to _goseedo_ is bigger than the city he’s growing more comfortable in by the day. So, he plots a course to D.C. on a private jet—he can do that now, by the way, because he’s Tony fucking Stark—and invites Peter along.

“I’ve met your aunt—I have to return the favor,” he explains, and with a promise to Rhodey that he’ll be back— _and if you get worried, call_ —they’re off to a nursing home that holds a piece of Tony’s heart behind a heavy, wooden door.

(Peter couldn’t explain the contentment he felt at seeing Tony and May sitting peacefully together, and Tony has the pleasure of experiencing the same undefinable happiness for himself.)

“Peter, this is my Aunt Peggy,” he introduces the two of them, Peggy’s wrinkled hand resting gently in his own, and Peter smiles, big and wide and like the sun itself illuminating his face.

“Hi, ma’am—it’s nice to meet you,” he replies.

Peggy smiles back, but despite her age, Tony notes that it’s a touch impish, and a moment later, he understands why. “Oh, I like you. You’re much more polite than Tony ever was,” she teases.

Tony’s mouth falls open in offense, but despite his protests—“Hey! Don’t be mean!”—the twinkling of her dark eyes, her silver curls spread on her pillows, soothes him, a security blanket in its purest form, even if he doesn’t remember everything that makes her so comforting to be around.

(As for Peggy, she has only ever asked that Tony be himself, and she is so, so happy to know that when her time comes, he will have a boy of his own to soothe the ache of loss.)

So they go and visit, and though Tony keeps several knives and a gun on him the whole time, though Peter calls and talks to May for an hour when they get back to the hotel to remind himself that he can, it feels right. It feels like getting better, like finding himself in those who care, and it’s the least Tony can do, honestly, to put some of his restless energy towards restoring part of Peter’s identity too.

He can’t always leave the Tower, but nobody has to know that, instead of taking notes on the tablet he brings with him to business meetings, he fleshes out designs for a new suit for Spider-Man.

(A new suit with a tracker and a heater and anything else Peter might need to be safe, a new suit worthy of someone with so much good to do, a new suit for Peter to believe in himself again in.)

Tony puts in the time wherever he can, and gritting his teeth against the urge to join the others on their missions, making old friendships new, exploring his desire to create what he wants just because he can, it comes together, red and blue and webbed all over—a bright, stunning costume to match the kid inside.

And a month and a half after Tony takes over the company, he invites Peter to take a break from his schoolwork and come down to his personal lab so he can give it to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the healing. 4 now. >:)


	24. Chapter 24

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_ **  
**

Peter is staring at the skyline. Peter is staring at the skyline from the top of Stark Tower, and his heart is in his throat, and his stomach is swooping and sailing like a paratrooper headed for a rough landing, and he is in the brand-new, very expensive spidersuit Tony customized for him.

It’s not the first time he’s done this since getting the suit. Twice before now, he’s hit the button in its center to tighten the fabric and headed to the roof with every intention of showing the people of New York City that he hasn’t abandoned them. And twice, now, he’s been overcome with fear, of falling, of _failing._

He still doesn’t remember how HYDRA got him in the first place. One moment, he was soaring through the air, and the next, he woke up in his holding cell, stripped of his mask and waiting, though he didn’t know it then, to be taken to slaughter with nothing but the faintest prick in his neck to serve as a warning.

Whether they meant to or not, by kidnapping him on-duty, HYDRA punched a hole through a part of Peter that felt much more solid than his everyday persona, and it’s a hard fix.

Peter breathes in, out. The air drags down to his lungs in a deliberate, slow path, and it filters through the fabric over his face a lot easier than it did in his sweatsuit.

(The sweatsuit HYDRA probably burned, if Peter had to wager a guess toward its fate.)

“I’ve got this,” he tells himself, but the self-assurance didn’t work the other two times and still isn’t doing much to convince Peter that he can trust Spider-Man again.

He grits his teeth. The third time is supposed to be the charm, but despite his best efforts, he can’t see how he’s supposed to move off the roof.

“You doing okay?”

Peter nearly falls off the damn building.

Tony’s voice sounds through the mask, and yeah, Peter knows it has a _shitton_ of tech in it, including a Siri-esque AI he’s yet to use, but Jesus _Christ_ that was loud, especially when he wasn’t expecting it.

Peter presses a hand to his chest, having sucked in a breath, and he shakes his head a little as his jumpstarted heart pounds. “You just scared the shit out of me,” he hisses, and he hopes a little irritation comes through his breathlessness.

“Did I?” Tony replies, doing a bad job of hiding his amusement, assuming he was trying at all.

Jerk.

 _“Yes,”_ Peter grouses, and after a moment he takes to gather his bearings, he responds to Tony’s original question. “And I’m fine, mostly, no thanks to you. Just trying to make myself actually get off the building.” A pause. “It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

Mostly everything is, now. Everything that involves trying to reconcile with who he was a few months ago, anyway.

Tony hums through the comm, considering. He still gets skittish around emotional conversations, but he’s getting better with each one he’s forced through—usually by Peter or Rhodey, though the others pitch in from time to time. As a testament to his growing skillset, he musters a response fairly quickly, though when it comes, it sounds a little awkward, making it clear that Tony isn’t confident he’s making the right move. “What’s making it hard?” he asks.

There’s a lot of ways Peter could respond to that, honestly, but most of his anxiety boils down to a simple fact, something he and Tony have already discussed but that plagues Peter’s thoughts nonetheless. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to protect myself, nevermind the city.”

Peter remembers what Tony promised him at the safe house— _“If they try to hurt you, I’ll get there first.”_ —but it’s a relief to hear him regurgitate the sentiment. 

“If you’re not, I can be. Do you want me to follow you?”

Even if Tony is unsure of what he’s doing, his support is as ready as ever.

Peter mulls the offer over. Ideally, he’d like to charge back into being Spider-Man on his own, but he’s tried that already; it’s not working.

Peter thinks of what May told him one time when she was visiting the Tower, able to stay the night as SHIELD slowly becomes more confident that HYDRA will leave her alone.

(Every day, Peter wonders when he’ll be able to live at the apartment again, but he shelves the thought for later.)

Peter had been explaining that he hates making Tony take time out of his day to deal with him, whether for a panic attack, a nightmare, or Peter simply needing to see that he’s safe—that he’s himself, and she took his hand, her eyes resolute behind her round, golden glasses.

“There’s _nothing_ wrong with needing help, honey, you need to know that.” And then, looking a little miffed. “I’m not his biggest fan, but he obviously cares about you. He wouldn’t want you to suffer alone, and if you do better with him around for a little, there’s no reason not to ask.”

Peter needs a change of pace, and Tony is willing to offer it to him. He’d be stupid not to take him up on it.

He nods, though he realizes, in hindsight, that Tony can’t see as much. “If you’re not busy, that’d be good,” he agrees, quiet but not meek in his decision.

(“ _And that’s okay,”_ he can imagine May saying, and he decides to take her word for it.)

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

The first swing tastes like trepidation.

The second, smog—an unavoidable part of the city he only ever wanted to protect.

And then the third, having found his stride, a few stories up and feeling for all the world like he’s more in control than when he’s on the ground, _freedom._

That’s what it’s always supposed to have felt like, web-slinging. Yeah, Spider-Man was made to protect the city, to stop people from losing their own Ben, but using his webs has always felt like flying, an art only he knows. In an occupation where everything else boils down to duty, this is something fun.

This time, he knows there won’t be Steve to catch him in the event of a fall, but he thinks of who he was the last time he tried this, the pain SHIELD didn’t have medicine for, the fear he felt more strongly than he does now, the hole in his heart that May fills when she appears at the Tower, soft and warm where so much of his life, as of late, has been hard.

Last time, Peter made his web fluid out of whatever he could find, and it’s not a bad comparison, Spider-Man with an integral part of his branding. At the safe house, Peter built what he needed from scraps and was forced to make do. Now, he has everything he needs on-hand, and it makes him stronger.

A delighted grin begins to spread across Peter’s features beneath his mask, and when he releases his latest web, he contorts into a flip before he shoots the next, just because he can. As much as he feared HYDRA’s appearance, up here, in his element, he’s untouchable, and he whoops with the joy of it all.

“God, I missed this,” he mutters to himself, turning sharply around a skyscraper to see how fast he can take it.

If he looked behind him, he might be able to see a sleek, top-of-the-line sports car weaving through traffic and provoking more than one driver into giving it the bird, but as Peter knows, Tony has no qualms with pissing people off for the hell of it.

“I’ll just follow based on your tracker,” Tony told him before they left the Tower, to which Peter’s brows bunched.

“You put a tracker in my suit?”

He could just _feel_ Tony rolling his eyes. “I put _everything_ in your suit,” he replied, clearly a little insulted that Peter thinks he’d leave something so rudimentary out.

In Tony’s defense, Peter should have known better than to doubt the levels of protection wired into just about everything he does for him. Tony might be out, but he’s just as paranoid as Peter, if not more so, about either of them getting sucked back in.

So, knowing Tony’s following him, knowing that Spider-Man’s activities are a secure thing, he lets himself enjoy it. He tunes in to the world around him—Manhattan is a different world than Queens, but it’s still his city, still his home—and the first thing to catch his ear is the yowling of a cat maybe three blocks to the north.

Peter changes course on a dime and a few deft motions, weaving through wind currents above the streets. The cat’s probably stuck in a tree, and while it’s not Peter’s first time dealing with that problem, he never really gets tired of it, especially if the cat likes to be held. He hums under his breath as he swings, picking up on the music filtering up from cars, businesses, and buildings below.

The city has always been a lot of input, but Peter doesn’t mind so much, not when it means it’s alive and exists in sharp contrast to concrete walls that made Peter feel like he was trying to hear the world underwater.

Maybe two minutes after the cry first went up, he narrows the source of it down to a tree he can see a patch of white in, and he heads in for extraction.

Vaguely, Peter hears cries of surprise as he lands on the street, of speculation— _“Wait, is that_ Spider-Man?”—but he tries not to let it get to head.

(To his heart, though, that warms at being recognized even after so long—well, he can excuse that.)

Even before the spider bite, Peter liked to climb, and it’s no problem to work his way up the branches until he finds a loud but luckily not-that-scared cat towards the top that responds very well to being placed on Peter’s shoulder and carried down. For his part, Peter likes listening to it purr, and when he gets to the ground, he rubs a hand down the animal’s back as he inspects the tag on its collar.

He looks at the address, then squints at the street sign down the road. It’d be impossible to see for the average human, but though Peter is many things, average has never been one of them.

“Looks like we’re on your street, uh—” Peter checks the tag again. “—Cupcake. Let’s get you home, alright?”

Cupcake meows in what Peter would like to believe is appreciation, and Peter ignores the eyes on his back. Pre-HYDRA Spider-Man wouldn’t have cared that people were staring, and if he wants people to think nothing has changed after his hiatus, he needs to keep acting like things are fine—unremarkable.

So, Peter webs to the roof of the nearest building and uses his AI to figure out where exactly the cat came from, even if that means convincing someone going into the apartment complex to let him in because _yes, he’s the real Spider-Man, not a robber—he just found the cat outside and is trying to return it to its owners._

Cupcake, serving as a bundle of white fur and love in Peter’s arms, blinks baby blue eyes at the guy very persuasively, to boot, and thus Peter raises his hand to knock on an apartment door.

Peter has to admit, while his relationship with Cupcake has been brief, he’ll miss the cat. For good measure, he gives it a few scratches between its ears, and then a girl that can’t be much more than eight opens the door.

Peter tries to introduce himself, “Uh, hey, I think I found your—” only to be interrupted by a shockingly loud bellow from the girl’s lips.

“Mo-om! Spider-Man found Cupcake!”

Peter jumps at her volume, but the girl is holding out her arms expectantly, so he gets over it and crouches down to hand Cupcake over. The girl takes the cat with an air of authority that, if anything, reminds Peter of Pepper, and she kisses Cupcake on the forehead before walking a little ways inside to set the cat down.

Cupcake runs to a food bowl without complaint, and Peter figures that’s his cue to leave. He edges away from the door, mentally patting himself on the back for a job well-done, but as he turns his back, the girl clears her throat.

Obediently, Peter spins back around, and he finds that, complimenting her frizzy, black curls and Disney princess pajamas, she has big, dark eyes shining with—

Oh.

“Thanks for getting her. My mom was trying to get this big package out of the door, and she ran out.”

(Shining with admiration.)

Peter rubs the back of his neck, smiling, though she can’t see it, beneath his mask. “Oh, well, you know. I was just doing my job. Can’t have Cupcake missing mealtime, right?”

The girl laughs, a giddy, tinkling sound. “She loves to eat,” she agrees, and Peter’s expression widens at the chewing he can faintly hear coming from within the apartment. “But, um, I also wanted to say that I think you’re cool. And I’m glad you’re back—even though I never thought you were _really_ gone—‘cause everyone said that Spider-Man wasn’t around anymore, which totally stunk because sometimes I saw you when my mom drove me home from school and I liked to look out the window for you.”

Something lodges in Peter’s throat, a lump that parts his lips with shock at the idea that, even if just to one kid, he was missed. He tries to speak around it, but he feels like his voice comes out tighter than it does normally. “Well, I’m back now,” he offers, “and I’m gonna’ try not to leave again.”

“Why’d you go?”

The hand on Peter’s neck stiffens, but he feigns nonchalance with a shrug. “Got caught up in some nasty stuff. You know how being Spider-Man is.”

The girl frowns. “No, I don’t,” she grumbles, and Peter snorts, unable to help himself.

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t. But—uh—I think you’re cool too, and so is Cupcake. Sorry I kept you waiting,” he tells her, and though his voice sobers, the girl doesn’t look deterred, a smile on her lips as Peter takes a step back. “See you around, okay?”

“See ya’,” she confirms, and as she retreats into the apartment, closes the door, as Peter hears the girl speaking with her mom through the thin walls— 

_“Who were you talking to just now?”_

_“I told you! Spider-Man!”_

—he has to raise a hand to wipe at his eyes.

The night is still young, but it’s off to a good start, even if it makes Peter a little teary to think of the faith someone else—a stranger, a kid who could’ve never spared a thought for him if she so chose—had in him.

 _Spider-Man_ is off to a good start now that Peter’s picked his mantle back up, and Peter leaves the apartment building to swing off into the sky.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

The first night back on the streets goes overwhelmingly well. After the cat, Peter stops a handful of muggings, walks a woman home, even offers a dude in town on a business trip some directions. It feels like coming home, and Peter loves it, can’t imagine, despite the lingering fear at the back of his mind, how he went so long without it.

Being Spider-Man is a part of him, and it wasn’t until he embraced his alter-ego again that Peter realized what it was like to go without something so integral to his person.

The first few times he heads out, Tony dutifully follows him, a mile or two away at most and monitoring his vitals the whole time, which he tells Peter with a shrug. Then, after a long conversation with May the night before, Peter and Tony are spending a few hours in the lab together when—

“I think I’m alright to go out without a security detail, now,” Peter says, elbow-deep in a project he’s building to cover what he missed in one of his robotics classes. 

At the silence that follows the admission, Peter looks up to find Tony staring at him.

One thing about Tony that can be unsettling is that HYDRA taught him how to make sure nobody can figure out what’s going on inside his head. For example, he’s looking at Peter right now, and his face has been smoothed into an unnervingly placid surface, a puddle so clear Peter can nearly see his reflection in the pits of Tony’s eyes.

It’s moments like these that make Peter see that, while Tony is becoming himself again, he will always be dangerous, even if _how_ he is a threat shifts with time.

(Tony’s is a face that has peered into the depths of human cruelty and not flinched, and Peter forgets that, sometimes, that part of himself he tries to distance from but comes back all the same.)

Tony blinks, but his face remains neutral. “Are you sure?”

Peter nods. “Natasha, Steve, and Sam say SHIELD hasn’t heard anything from or about HYDRA since you guys raided that big base, and you’re not going to be able to trail me all the time. You have a company to run—a life outside of me. Spider-Man’s my job, not yours.”

The first rumple appears in Tony’s carefully maintained illusion, a gathering of his brows. “But if you need me, I _can_ be there,” he insists, and though Peter knows he tries to hide it, he sifts through the walls he’s put up to find an underlying ache in his words, the pain of Tony thinking—even if he won’t say as much—that he’s useless.

It’s a conversation that’s been a long time coming, when Peter takes the time to think about it, from Natasha trying to make him spar back at the safehouse to Steve breaking his fall.

“You could be, but—” Peter takes a deep breath. He needs Tony to understand what he’s going to tell him, so he chooses his words slowly, meticulously. “You could be,” he starts again, “but you don’t have to be. I know you feel guilty for a lot of the stuff that’s happened to me—that you’ve done in general, I guess, and I get why. But I might get into a bad situation or be hurt or whatever, and that’ll, you know, suck, but at some point, I have to learn to deal with that. I know you care about me, but you’ve done enough.”

Tony’s mouth falls open, but no sound comes out.

For someone who Peter’s almost never seen speechless without a muzzle strapped over his mouth, that’s no ordinary thing, and while he’s still processing, Peter continues. “I mean it. You got me back to May; you built me my new suit. You’ve done your part, so now you can let me go.”

Tony _still_ isn’t saying anything, though his eyes are getting bigger by the second, and now, it’s freaking Peter out a little. The last time he drew a blank this large, he was figuring out who he was before HYDRA. Peter didn’t think their conversation was that big of a deal when he started it, but Tony’s looking at him like _that._

Peter can’t tell if he’s going to cry or yell or do _anything_ other than stare, and he tries to elaborate in hopes that it will make him unfreeze.

“I mean, you don’t have to let me go _forever_ or anything ‘cause I’m not planning on going anywhere, but I just mean, like, you’re not obligated to put me before everything. And you don’t have to protect me _all the time_ to make up for anything you still feel bad about, and I think—”

“I love you, kid.”

Like a match shoved into water, Peter’s rambling sputters to a stop.

Tony’s head is tipped the tiniest bit to one side, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft. “I realized when Rhodey showed up, and I got a little too _overwhelmed_ to tell you, but I do. I’d do anything for you, you know that, right? If you think you’re ready for some space, I’m happy to give it to you, but you’re never a bother.”

“I know,” Peter squeaks out, thoroughly taken off guard by the admission of something so, for lack of a more apt term, _big_. “I know.”

Tony nods, looking down at his work. “Then as long as you feel safe, that works for me. You run it by May?” Peter nods, and Tony hums. “Good.” He glances up, his expression made purposefully decipherable. “Then I’ll keep an ear out for you on patrol if that’s okay with you, but I can let you go. Because I love you.”

 _Not out of guilt or obligation or anything else_ , his face says, candid and open in a way it never would’ve been that day Peter woke up at the safe house

(Admitting how much he cares is no small feat, but Tony would do it again for Peter, would do _everything_ again for Peter.)

It hits Peter, then, just how much the two of them have grown, and _pride_ for all that Tony’s become in HYDRA’s absence, all that Tony’s accomplished given the chance to be better, bursts, strong and fierce and glowing, from his chest.

Peter smiles, and though Tony goes back to tinkering and would probably like to pretend that all is normal, Peter doesn’t quite let him. “I love you too,” he tells him quietly, and in the space between heartbeats, in a room smelling of grease but carrying their convergent stories, it feels right.

//

_NEW YORK CITY - 2015_

The nice thing about being friends with various secret agents and/or ex-assassins is that they do a lot of the heavy lifting for Peter in terms of telling him confidently that, _yeah, we’ve been raiding bases left and right and freeing people and haven’t seen any HYDRA agents or activity around, even with you in the city, not to mention Tony and Bucky took one of their chief officers out, so it’s pretty safe here._

Or something like that, anyway.

The bottom line is that while Sam and Steve occasionally censor what Natasha tells him, Peter trusts her to be truthful with him where it counts, even when it might be easier to believe a lie, and she tells him, when he asks, that HYDRA doesn’t have significant forces within the city.

“We’d have sniffed a big group of them out by now,” she elaborates when prompted. “They’re good, but with Barnes and I on their case, they can’t hide better than we can search.”

And at the time, Peter smiles, soothed by the capabilities of those he’s somehow found himself surrounded by.

 _(“We’d have sniffed a big group of them out by now,”_ she says, and that, at least, is true.)

His days by then, about a month and a half since Tony’s return to Stark Industries, have settled into a semi-routine blend of schoolwork, spending time in the lab, sparring with Bucky, seeing May and the others, and Spider-Man. It’s nice, helps him find his sense of normal again, and May’s even broached the idea of going back to school.

He thinks it sounds reasonable, something he could manage—with, admittedly, some difficulty—and his thoughts wander to what it would be like, being a normal kid again, as he sits on a rooftop on patrol.

“What do you think?” he asks his still-unnamed AI.

Tony’s been busy trying to upgrade the one in the Tower with Rhodey’s help, which means Peter’s is still the rudimentary thing Tony stuck in his suit mostly to grant him easy internet access.

It’s a little clunky, true, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to on patrol, and on cue, it responds: “Interesting question.”

Well, Peter appreciates the effort anyway. He’s taking a breather from a more hectic night and is planning on asking the AI something else. Instead, he hears a scream pierce NYC’s usual cadence.

The hair on his body stands straight up, and Peter moves into action almost before he can process what’s going on. His arms are strong and sure as they cut through the night, and though Peter’s senses are enough to tell him where he needs to go, he keeps listening, sifts through the sounds of the city to see if he can figure out more of what’s happening.

It takes a second, but, especially as he draws closer, he hears a voice—masculine but not very distinct amongst the myriad of horns and shouts and other squalor Peter has to tune out.

“Shout again. _Do it.”_

And then, a stutter so short Peter can’t discern much about it—

“I—please—”

A shriek goes up.

Peter sucks in a breath, moving more quickly, the _thwips_ of his webs pounding a harsh, nearly brutal rhythm between the buildings he uses to propel himself forward. “I’m coming,” he mutters beneath his breath, knowing the words are illogical, unheard by the victim, but wishing he could provide comfort all the same.

The conversation passing in the scene Peter’s launching himself towards sends chills down his spine.

“Yell for Spider-Man. Now!”

“Oh my God, please don’t kill me, _please_ , just leave me alone.”

“You have three seconds before I get rid of you and find someone more cooperative.”

“Please—”

“Three.”

“What—”

_“Two.”_

“Spider-Man!”

“Again.”

“Spider-Man, _please!”_

The screams resonate in the air like a death knell, and Peter moves as fast as he can, even as he races towards something that’s clearly far from the average mugging or drug deal. Someone is looking for _him,_ specifically, and they’re using a hostage to make sure he shows.

(If Peter wasn’t so hopped up on adrenaline, if he wasn’t so focused on listening to be sure the hostage is still alive, he might recognize the voice hissing threats, but he’s never heard it that way before, angry and out of its owner’s element.)

Peter is swift in tearing a path to someone who so obviously needs his help, but as he drops into an alley, he’s paralyzed at the sight that greets him.

The lead doctor for HYDRA’s experiments is choking a kid not much older than Peter with an arm around his neck, and his other hand presses a pistol against his skull. “So nice of you to join us, _Spider-Man,”_ he sneers, and Peter thinks he’s going to throw up.

He’s gaunter than Peter remembers, harried and more than a little frenzied as he stands in the alley, every bit as ruthless as he was when he suggested operating on him without anesthesia, when he had him tossed back into his cell with blood still caking his skin, when he cared more about how he was a _breakthrough_ than all the ways he was still human.

Peter doesn’t know how he finds his voice, doesn’t process how it sounds, either.

His hands begin to shake, but still, “Let him go,” he demands.

Spider-Man normally has a lot more to say, would come into things with some kind of quip, but Peter can barely remember how to make his mouth form words, let alone drum up some snark.

The doctor twists the gun harder into the side of the kid’s head. “Or what?” he asks. “What are you going to do to me? If you make a move I don’t like, if you call for the Star or any other backup, he dies.”

The kid whimpers. He has a backpack on, was probably on his way home from an extracurricular or something when he got attacked, and a frenetic terror winks in the blue of his eyes. “Save me, _please_ , oh God—” he chokes out and then cuts off as the doctor tightens his hold on his neck.

“Shut _up,”_ the doctor hisses and then looks venomously to Peter, who is fighting quite possibly the purest form of fear he’s ever felt. “Put your hands up.”

The kid has silent tears streaming down his reddening face, and Peter does what the doctor asks.

The man laughs, a cold, smug sound, and Peter’s words eke out into the tension stretched between them. “What do you want?”

He knew this was a possibility. Tony and Bucky and Natasha have never shied away from telling him how HYDRA pursues their investments, but he thought he wouldn’t have to be alone if the time came.

That’s the point though, isn’t it? If he had any of the others with him, they’d know what to do. They’d have the experience, the skill to stop this, but Peter’s fourteen and scared and is watching yet another person’s life hang in the balance of his actions versus the world’s.

 _(Don’t make me watch anyone else die,_ Peter prays, but he doesn’t think anyone is listening.)

Bucky has taught him ever since his rescue how to defend himself, but he hasn’t said what to do when someone doesn’t have to attack him to get him under control.

“I _want_ to finish my experiments,” the doctor growls.

Peter doesn’t know what he expected.

He feels like someone’s set the scars sketched across his body aflame, and his heartbeat is thunderous in his ears. It occurs to him that his vitals must be going nuts—the world doesn’t normally go fast and slow all at once, for one—and he gives it two minutes before Tony makes a call he won’t be able to pick up.

Peter swallows and hates that the doctor can see his fingers quavering from where he’s spread them in the air. “What will make you let him go?” he asks, nodding his head towards the kid. “You wanted me, right, got him to yell for me?” He shifts, trying to straighten his back, seem even slightly more confident. “He did his job. Leave him out of this.”

The doctor barks another laugh, and his lips arrange themselves in a pantomime of a grin, cruel and unfeeling. “His _job_ isn’t finished yet, but that was a good try.” His arm around the guy’s throat loosens a little, and the kid sucks in a breath, coughing over his wrist even as the doctor leans in and speaks into his ear: “Run, and you’re dead.”

Then, the chokehold disappears entirely, and the doctor shoves the kid, who’s so startled, he falls to his knees, still sobbing as he puts his hands over his head. The action might make him feel more secure, but Peter knows how a bullet feels as it tears through flesh and blood. If the doctor decides to shoot, the kid’s at point-blank range, and if he aims for his head—

_(Peter doesn’t want to see anyone else die.)_

Peter’s mind is spinning, thinking of how he might be able to save the kid now that there’s a bit of distance between him and the doctor, and then the man pulls out a yellow, leather journal with a backward check on its cover.

Peter’s heart nearly stops then and there, and his mind settles on a simple mantra, horror and shock blending to a seamless stream of _no, no, no, no, no, not again,_ please, _Tony’s come so far, no,_ no—

He drops the journal. Steps on it. Keeps it beneath his boot and pulls out a phone. “The way I see it, you have two options,” the doctor begins, and despite the mania he’s grown into since Peter’s escape, in that moment, he’s collected, clinical, the man who oversaw the worst moments of Peter’s life and embraced it for the sake of his curiosity. He scrolls on the phone, still keeping the gun trained on his hostage as he presumably finds what he’s looking for. “I’ve found a spare set of the Star’s trigger words, and I’ve taken the liberty of copying them down on here,” he explains, waving the phone. “You can try to pull something, but should you refuse to come with me, all I have to do is hit _send_ , and they’ll go right back to HYDRA. The Star—a Stark. It’s all the same if HYDRA decides it is, and of course, if you don’t cooperate—” He lowers the pistol a bit, lining the trajectory up with the kid’s forehead. “—he’ll die, too. 

“If you agree to come with me, I have tranquilizers on hand you’ll allow me to administer. You’ll go without a fight, and I’ll leave the journal and the boy here. Nobody else needs to get hurt, but it’s your choice, _Spider,”_ he finishes with a slow, sickening drawl, and Peter can feel the world folding in on itself.

A million thoughts run through his head, like how the doctor even knew where he was— _news coverage on his return, probably_ —or how he might be able to get out of this— _he doesn’t know how._ It’s all too confusing, convoluted and making him want to scream and cry at the same time, but though the muck—

_“Incoming call from Tony Stark.”_

Oh God— _Tony._

“Decline call,” Peter mumbles, and the doctor flares up.

“What did you just say?” he seethes, jutting the gun dangerously at the kid, who shrieks and flinches away, and the words spill out of Peter’s mouth faster than he can register them.

“Nothing— _nothing!”_ he insists. “There’s an AI in my suit, and I had to turn down a call! Don’t shoot!”

He has to do something, and he has to do it _now._ Peter doesn’t doubt for a second that the man really will hurt the kid if pushed, and every second he spends figuring out what to do is another he’s risking his life.

“I—” What does he say? What does he _do?_ “If—if I go with you and you bring me to them again,” he eventually manages, “won’t you be taking the words back to HYDRA anyway?”

The doctor’s lips twist in a wry and yet somehow bitter smile. “Please, like there’s anything left of HYDRA worth taking you back to. The Star and the Asset and all of your other _friends_ have been busy sending them scrambling like roaches, and they don’t have much funding for what I want to do, anymore.” His head cocks a few inches to one side, and his lips curve a little further upward. “Besides, HYDRA wants you alive. _I_ want to do my research in peace.”

So that’s how it’s going to be.

Peter already knows the right answer, really. He can’t let an innocent person die, and he definitely can’t let Tony’s words get back to HYDRA. The doctor was right when he said HYDRA could decide which version of him they want, and Tony just got his company back. He has too much going for him, but Peter?

He blinks, thinking of May, of Tony, and he’s so glad they both know he loves them.

As if on cue— _“Incoming call from Tony Stark.”_

Peter ignores the ringing filling his mask, not wanting to risk setting the doctor off again, but as he gears himself up to tell the man his decision—

“If you choose well, I’ll even let you call emergency services for him.”

Peter barely has time to wonder what that means before the gun fires and a bullet plants itself in the kid’s leg.

The screaming starts immediately, and Peter can’t stop himself from lunging forward to help. The kid balls himself around the wound, and Peter wishes he could make the pain stop. He knows what it feels like, and he presses one hand over the wound and the other above it, though the smell of blood reminds him of his cell, makes him feel faint.

“Are you crazy?” he yells, and the kid is panicking beneath his touch, looking up at Spider-Man with eyes that are _begging_ him to make it all better even as thick, sticky crimson flows over Peter’s fingers and agonized shouts echo into the night. “He’s going to bleed out! He needs help now—he needs—”

“I don’t _care_ what he needs. Choose, _now,_ or I’ll finish him off.”

Peter looks up helplessly, the second call from Tony unanswered and another filtering through his mask— _“Incoming call from Tony Stark.”_ —to find the doctor standing above the two of them, the pistol in position to do as he threatens, and Peter can taste gunpowder in the back of his throat.

He doesn’t try to take Peter on his own. He studied Peter for months; he knows how strong he can be uninjured, but that’s exactly why he’s hindered him where it counts. The people he loves and the duty Peter feels to his city—the doctor’s hit them both in one, and Peter wants to sob, but he _can’t._ He doesn’t have time, and he nods, finding tears choking his voice when he speaks. “I’ll go with you, I swear, just let me help him.”

The doctor smiles, and it’s the soulless thing that hovered above Peter on the operating table, makes him feel just as small.

He told Tony to let him go, that it’d be okay, but he was an _idiot_ to think that he could do it alone. He hasn’t grown at all. He’s just the same, scared boy they sent into a fight he had no chance of winning, and in this second match, he has miserably, miserably lost.

Later, Peter will only vaguely remember that he contacts emergency services and tells them his location. He won’t know how he did it, what the dispatchers said, only that wherever the doctor hit the kid, it sapped the strength from his struggles fast. Still, Peter stands, clenching his eyes shut against the prick of a needle he knows is coming.

_“Incoming call from Tony Stark.”_

The doctor injects something into the skin of Peter’s neck, and as he waits for the world around him to fade out, he hopes that however the doctor kills him, it’s fast.

Except the blackness he’s expecting, the sort that towed him under so effectively when HYDRA snatched him up the first time, never comes. The world goes a little unfocused, yes. Peter’s limbs feel . . . mushy, for lack of a better word, and his thoughts slur like molasses, viscous and dripping weightily from topic to topic. But he stays awake, swaying from side to side in the alley as the doctor, confident in his ministry, looks away to lock his phone, lower his gun, and toe the journal aside.

A lot of things run through Peter’s mind, but what comes out on top of it all is, at first, an explanation.

The thing is, Peter’s body really is interesting. HYDRA’s told him as much a thousand times before, usually between rounds of sedation or anesthesia, rounds the doctor in front of him never wanted to provide. It makes sense, then, that he apparently didn’t factor in the possibility of Peter having built up an immunity to the stuff when deciding what would be necessary to take him out in the present.

The next item Peter processes is that the doctor’s back is turned, and that’s as far as he needs to get. His lip curls in disgust, and he stumbles forward, unanchored but very, _very_ strong.

The doctor hears him take a step, but even with Peter drugged to hell and back, he’s too slow to do much more than widen his eyes before Peter’s fist crashes into his stomach and sends him flying. Peter watches him roll, the man shouting in pain as his limbs flail for purchase, and he follows, kicking the gun he manages to hold onto out of his hand with a weird cracking sound.

A beat later, Peter reasons that _oh, those are probably his fingers_ , but he finds it hard to care. If the doctor wanted him to retain the control he puts so much effort towards when he’s lucid, he shouldn’t have tried to kidnap him.

Peter doesn’t have great fine motor control just then, but it doesn’t take much to grab the man by the collar of his shirt and shove him into the wall, the brick splintering under the force. Peter can smell fresh blood, and the doctor’s eyes are glazed even as he tries to no avail to get out of Peter’s grip. Neither of those observations faze him, either. It takes a few tries for his fingers to make the right motion, but eventually, Peter hits the buttons on his palms properly, and a web comes out to hold him there, suspended and helpless, above the ground.

_“Incoming call from Tony Stark.”_

The world feels like a globe someone’s spinning as fast as they can, but Peter narrows his eyes as he analyzes the damage on the man.

He _howls,_ writhing as he tries to cradle his mangled hand to his chest only to get it stuck to the webbing. Peter watches him do so dispassionately, logging his injuries in his head: a concussion, fractured collar bone, broken ribs, broken fingers.

None of it’s certain, of course, especially with the doctor thrashing and making it hard to get a good look at him, but since Peter used to wake up after being put under with still-healing bones, he has some pretty good guesses.

(In a dark part of him that’s not as small as he’d like it to be, Peter hopes it hurts as bad as anything the doctor chose to put him through.)

He hears the wail of an ambulance in the distance and a whimper from the kid, and Peter takes a step towards him—even if he should be fine with a leg wound until paramedics can get to him, Peter registers that he should try to soothe him—only to lose his footing and fall. Absently, his nose wrinkles at the grossness of laying in an NYC alley, but even if it doesn’t seem like he’s going to pass out, his limbs feel like lead. Frankly, he doesn’t think he has it in him to get back up after exerting so much effort on the doctor, so he stays on the ground and dwells on all that just happened.

Understanding that he made it, that he saved himself and an extension of his city, comes last.

Blood is drying on his hands, a sedative is rich in his veins, but Peter came out on top. 

HYDRA tried to undo him, wanted to make him their own, but instead of taking it sitting down, his body fundamentally changed to outwit them. A fourteen-year-old boy versus one of their top scientists, and guess who won?

A half-hysterical laugh bubbles out of Peter’s lips.

An eclectic array of sounds are calling for his attention—sirens, squealing tires, screaming—but in the little time before all of that reaches him, Peter finds himself immeasurably comforted by proof that he has what it takes to protect himself after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize—I could not resist the urge to go apeshit one last time. But? This is the second to last chapter?? Absolutely wild. Next chapter will mostly serve as an epilogue, and then this fic will be over, which is insane for me to think about. Thank you to everyone who has stuck it out this long, and I’ll see you next week. : )


	25. Chapter 25

_STARK TOWER - 2015_ **  
**

When Peter comes to, the first thing he registers is that his bed is _ridiculously_ comfortable. A soft, contented sound slips out as a result, and _that_ leads to what Peter pegs as a chair shifting aggressively enough to make a sound against the floor.

Why the hell is someone sitting in a chair by his bed?

Peter opens his eyes to find himself an answer to that question, and with an unusual amount of grogginess, he discovers Tony on one side of him and May on the other, twin sets of huge, dark eyes staring at him in wonder.

That’s kind of a lot of pressure, but despite it all, the first words that come out of Peter’s very dry mouth are straight to the point: “Were you guys watching me sleep?”

May moves first, and Peter finds himself being crushed in her embrace, tight and a little harried but no less loving for it. “Don’t you _ever_ do that to us again,” she hisses over his shoulder, and Peter’s arms raise hesitantly to wrap around her in return, rubbing her shoulder blade where he can reach.

“I—uh—I’m sorry?”

He’s trying to remember what he might’ve done to warrant this kind of reception, but while he can recall _something_ , he needs someone to spell it out for him, the memories too hazy to bring into focus on his own.

May still hasn’t let go, and her hair is soft against Peter’s cheek. “You better be,” she whispers fiercely, and Peter’s eyes slide to Tony in a silent question before May tugs herself back to press no less than three kisses to his face she cups in her hands. Peter lets her without protest, and as soon as she’s gone, Tony replaces her.

His hold isn’t as soft as hers, is coarse and earned over time instead of May’s natural affection, but it’s a different brand of home nonetheless. Peter doesn’t complain about it either, not when, now that he’s focusing, he can hear their hearts beating a touch too fast.

“You scared the shit out of me, kid,” Tony mumbles when he falls back into his seat, bags hanging, dark as bruises, under his eyes.

It’s pretty telling that he’s cussing in front of Peter around May, who he normally is on his best behavior for.

Peter looks from Tony to May and back again. “What _happened?”_ he asks, and he hopes the depths of his confusion shine through his tone. “I remember some of it, but it’s really—uh—blurry? I’m gonna’ need some help filling in the whole picture.”

Tony laughs, but the sound is thin, incredulous. “That tracks, I guess,” he replies, scrubbing a hand down his face. “When we got to you, you were drugged to the gills on the ground of an alley. There was a beat-up guy on the wall nearby, and a kid laying a few feet from you. He told emergency responders that he’d been a hostage for the other guy so he could get to you.”

Peter paints the scene Tony describes in his mind, and as far as he can tell, it sounds accurate. His lips pinch and brows furrow, trying to summon more details. “The man on the wall,” he begins tentatively, “he was a doctor, right? He was—”

The memories rise fast and sudden, torrential— _syringes, blood, scalpels, blood, scars,_ blood—

“Oh my God, he was _HYDRA.”_ Peter’s head jerks up in a tight, fearful motion, staring at Tony. “He had—he had a copy of your words, and he was going to use them to—to—”

He can’t _remember,_ exactly, but he knows it was bad, knows that he was handing himself over both for the kid on the ground and because he threatened to do _something_ to Tony with his triggers.

“You don’t need to worry about it,” Tony assures him, but no, _no,_ empty attempts at soothing him aren’t going to work here.

Peter shakes his head quickly. “No, really, he had another book, it was yellow and had the check and—”

“It was fake.”

The panic drains out of Peter just as quickly as it arrived.

(The world spins around in circles, and later, Peter will look back on the moment and acknowledge how strange it is to have revisited the same experience from a few months ago, the fear that he didn’t do enough to keep Tony’s words out of HYDRA’s grasp.)

“What?”

“It was fake,” Tony reiterates. “It was a good imitation—a _really_ good imitation—but Bucky found it when he showed up with me because you wouldn’t pick up my calls. The guy got the outside right, but the pages were all blank.”

Peter stares, unable to find anything to say, and May cuts in with words he doesn’t have. “That other boy is okay, too. An ambulance got there around the same time Bucky and Tony did, and they got him fixed up. SHIELD took the man into their custody. Everything turned out okay, honey.”

“You did it,” Tony adds, and as Peter, gobsmacked, looks between the two of them, past concern, he sees pride written all over their expressions.

It’s a lot to process, if he’s honest, because what the two of them have described has made things a whole lot clearer, beginning with the fact that the _terror_ Peter felt at HYDRA being able to sink their teeth back into Tony was unwarranted.

In and of itself, the news isn’t particularly earth-shattering. But if the doctor had wanted, he could’ve shot the kid and told Peter help wasn’t coming unless he agreed to go with him, could’ve gone about it a thousand other ways. Instead, he went for the jugular.

There’s more than one disturbing element to the picture forming in Peter’s head of what happened, but Peter finds himself viscerally unnerved that the doctor recognized that the most effective way to force his hand would be to threaten someone Peter loves.

The image is murky of Peter letting him tranquilize him, of the doctor threatening Tony and watching him cave just like that, but it’s there and horrifying nonetheless, ready to drag Peter down if he’ll allow it.

But Tony’s words from a second ago echo in his ears— _“You did it.”_ —and Peter manages to muster a smile. “Yeah, I did,” he affirms softly, mostly to himself.

He lets the fact wash over him, the realization—lucid, this time—that he’s stronger than what HYDRA has to offer, and despite everything, including the considerable harm he suspects he did to the doctor’s body but finds it hard to feel regret about, the smile grows to a grin. “Shit, I _did.”_

May smiles too, the motion a little watery but still happy. “Watch your mouth,” she protests feebly, and Peter snorts at the mundanity of it, only for his attention to be drawn by Tony clearing his throat.

“If you’re feeling up to it, I know about six other people who’d like to see that you’re doing okay.”

Peter takes a moment to think about it, the group of nine of them, counting May, Tony, and him, and then he thinks of those forever gone from his life and the splintered pieces they left behind. There are no replacements for all that Peter has lost, but there is something new and beautiful in it, the always chaotic, occasionally prickly, surprisingly _close-knit_ lot of them.

He nods. “Bring them in,” he agrees.

(Over a decade from where his story with Tony began, Peter finds himself, despite the pain sprawled in heaps across its pages, loving the inevitable outcome of it.)

//

_STARK TOWER - 2015_

“Seventy-six percent,” Tony tells Rhodey, his foot tapping on the ground.

Rhodey hums, sitting on a nearby table. He’ll have to go back to work soon—already, he’s been flying out for a few days here and there, working up to leaving for a longer bout of time, though Tony insists that he’ll always be welcome at the Tower—but for now, they’re sitting in the lab, watching some harebrained idea from the 80s come to life. “It’s gonna’ be weird to hear his voice again,” he admits, more casually blunt than anyone else with him.

Both Tony and the boy he once was love Rhodey for a lot of reasons, but that’s one of his favorite things about him. Rhodey knows he’s different now, isn’t the teenager from his memories, but he doesn’t care, only changes as much as is necessary as they pick up where their old friendship left off.

Tony nods, though he doesn’t look his way, watching the progress bar inch its way to completion. “You met?”

“A few times.”

“I brought you home?”

“Nah—he came to visit.”

“Makes sense.”

Rhodey heard him talking about upgrading the Tower’s AI and said Tony had ideas from way back when scrawled in journals Rhodey salvaged from their apartment, but he didn’t think it could come this far. It’s a little out of his element, true—HYDRA had him work with hardware more often than not, and by hardware, he means a lot of weaponizable materials—but it’s _fun_ to make, even better with Rhodey and occasionally Peter helping.

Tony’s having more fun with life in general, these days, and it’s so much better than he thought it would be. Still, the idea of reconnecting with someone the past him loved, even if his memories of the man are hazy at best, is exciting, and Tony eyes the progress bar again.

_Eighty-four percent._

It’s going fairly quickly, but JARVIS is a lot of information to absorb.

“It’s wild to think that you’ve come this far from DUM-E.”

Huh?

Tony raises a brow, glancing to Rhodey. “From _what?”_

Rhodey blinks, and he looks at Tony for a second like _he’s_ the idiot before his expression straightens out. “Sorry, I forget sometimes,” he leads into it, and then, “DUM-E’s the name of a bot you created at MIT. Your first AI, technically, but JARVIS is way more advanced. I still have him in storage, actually, if you want him, but you always said he was a lousy helper.”

Rhodey tells him as much with a twinkle in his eye, and Tony makes a note to figure out the joke, or at least, what about DUM-E makes Rhodey wear that fond, almost-exasperated look. For now—

“And _why_ did I name it that?”

Rhodey snorts. “Because you knew the media—and Howard—was going to go ballistic over it, I think, and you thought it was funny to call the most advanced AI in the world stupid.”

Tony can’t stop himself from smiling a little because it _is_ funny, okay? Except when he does, he finds Rhodey staring at him like—like—

Well, Tony doesn’t know. His gaze is all soupy and his lips are curved in a quiet, unconscious sort of way, and it’s all too soft an expression for _anyone_ to direct towards him bar Peter, maybe.

“What?” he asks, frowning.

Rhodey holds up his hands placatingly, shaking his head. “Nothing, Tones. Don’t worry about it.”

(It’s a lot rarer, these days, for Tony to be happy over something stupid like the dumbass name he gave his bot, and Rhodey cherishes what shows of his old sense of humor.)

The frown deepens. _“Tell me,”_ he tries to insist because yeah, maybe he wants to pummel Natasha sometimes—and he knows the feeling is mutual, for that matter—but he’s just as bad as her when it comes to being out of the loop. He could probably get Rhodey to crack. Something tells him he has before, anyway, but—

_Beep!_

Tony’s head snaps toward the computer, and sure enough, the progress bar is full— _one hundred percent._

Tony holds his breath, but tentatively, he speaks to the room and the mics stashed around it. “JARVIS?”

“At your service, sir.”

Tony’s listened to videos of the man JARVIS is based on—it’s where he got his voice, after all—but the sense of _warmth_ he got from watching him there didn’t prepare him for this, the feeling, however illogical, that Edwin Jarvis is physically present. 

“Shit, Tones,” Rhodey breathes in awe, staring at the ceiling even though Tony’s told him and everyone else that an AI isn’t actually up there. “I knew you could do it but wow— _wow.”_

 _Yeah_ , Tony thinks, at a loss for words himself, _wow._

Tears begin to roll down Tony’s cheeks. He doesn’t get why, really, but he hopes it’ll come back to him. In the meantime, Rhodey gets up and comes to wrap an arm around his shoulders, and Tony likes the feeling of resting his head on Rhodey’s body.

Life for Tony isn’t always as straightforward as this, unhindered incredulity and more than a little giddiness, but when it is, Tony finds himself liking it. It’s different than the lack of options with HYDRA, vastly better. This is a situation _he’s_ created, and it’s one where he’s also decided to let himself bask in it. It’s _his,_ and the Soldier—a creature fiercely protective of his light, a constant source of pain, because it was the only thing he owned—wouldn’t have believed it possible.

“Peter’s going to think this is the coolest shit,” Tony manages after a long moment, and Rhodey laughs.

Tony’s right about that. At the time of launching JARVIS, Peter’s out with May and Natasha looking for some new clothes to wear to the school he has plans to return to in a few weeks—to wear on the commute from his apartment with May, too. His old clothes don’t fit _horribly_ , but they’re a little too big with him still struggling to fill out again post-HYDRA. He comes back from the trip pale—Tony, for one, suspects it can’t be easy to go into a dressing room and stare at the scars lying under the high-coverage clothes he favors nowadays—but when Tony tells him to ask the room about the weather, his face _lights up_ at the crisp, accented answer he receives.

“Holy _shit_ —you got him up and running!” he enthuses.

 _“Peter,”_ May reminds him, gone to the pantry to find something to eat. 

He throws her a cursory, bashful smile. “Sorry,” he apologizes quickly, and then his attention is back on Tony. “Is he going to run SI now?”

Tony shrugs. “I’ll have to test him out some more, but hopefully, yes. He’ll do better than the current model, anyway.”

Peter agrees, and then Tony fades into the background, too, because he’s busy shooting off a thousand different questions at JARVIS and responding with delight as they’re answered not only accurately but with a _personality_ to match.

It’s something of an out of body experience, still, having his inventions received with something other than dry expectation, and inwardly, Tony preens at Peter’s and eventually everyone else’s fascination with JARVIS.

Peter was the first person to be innocently interested in anything of the Soldier’s that day he found out about the arc reactor, and seeing him so excited just makes Tony’s anger towards the doctor who tried to take him away burn that much hotter.

He tries not to think about it too much—not the man himself, anyway, who’s still recovering from the shit Peter put him through because he was too drugged to remember how to control his strength.

He’s talked to Bucky about that one, the sheer _power_ Peter’s too good to let loose normally. “He broke most of his ribs with one punch,” Tony had explained a few days after the incident had passed, long enough for Peter to feel comfortable going out as Spider-Man again and also long enough for Fury, through methods Tony doesn’t care enough to ask after, gets the doctor’s side of things and tells them to Tony when he won’t leave it alone. “Grabbed him by his shirt and broke his collarbone in the process. The asshole’s lucky he doesn’t have brain damage.”

The two of them saw the damage first hand when they arrived to find why the fuck Peter wasn’t responding to any of his calls, saw the wall _splintered_ where Peter had pressed the man against it.

(Even after all their time with people allowed to be stronger than anyone needs to be, the sight unnerved both of them, evidence of someone as young as Peter losing it.)

Tony will never forget what it was like to see Peter laying on the ground, eyes glazed and face slack. For a second, seeing the blood _everywhere_ , having the metallic stench in his nose, Tony thought he was dead before he caught the muted _thump-thump-thump_ of Peter’s heart.

It wasn’t the first time he’s been around a questionably conscious Peter, but he hopes it will be the last.

Fury has the man locked up tight, or at least, that’s what Bucky tells him when it’s late at night and Tony goes up to the gym to do _something_ other than lay in bed and grind his teeth in fury.

He’s had more than one dream about showing the doctor exactly what it means to mess with his fucking kid, but he’s been trying to tamp down on his more violent urges. He’s yet to feel even a sliver of regret for how he handled Stane or Pierce, but he recognizes that hurting people to solve his problems is not a _great_ thing. It’s easier to ignore the urge with everyone around, anyway, following Bucky’s lead as he uses his metal hand as delicately as possible, seeing Rhodey brighten up a room with a smile or May quietly bulldoze her way through any inconvenience in her path.

He knows Peter’s getting better, too. He struggles in different ways than Tony, ends up falling back on the bare minimum he needs to scrape by whereas Tony turns rough and mechanical on his bad days, but progress is progress.

And when Peter comes to him and asks if he can take him by his friend’s—Ned’s—house after Midtown lets out for the day, Tony is so, so _proud._

He texts May, who’s at work, before they leave, and though her response is succinct, probably tapped out fast on break, when Tony watches from the curb as Peter _collapses_ into an unfamiliar boy’s arms, he thinks he understands the depth of what she means by _Thank you. He needs it._

He turns the car off and lets the two of them take as long as they need, and all by himself, no one knows about the tears—becoming more common and less mortifying the more time that passes—that prick the back of his eyes at how it resembles what he has with Rhodey. He can hear the two of them crying, though he makes a point of tuning out their conversation to the best of his ability. He knows how draining reunions of that caliber can be, despite how good they feel, so when Peter slides back into the passenger seat, Tony expects a quiet drive back to the Tower.

Still, he makes sure to ask him what he wants as they drive away and Peter—probably without realizing it—presses a hand to the window and watches his friend until he fades into the distance. “Where to?”

But Peter surprises him, even as he stares seemingly innocuously at the passing scenery. “How about patrol?”

Tony shoots him a look after shouting at people being idiots at a four-way stop— _goddamn residential areas._ “Patrol? You sure? You look a little worn out.”

Peter nods decisively. “Yeah, patrol.” And then, doing a bad job of subtly looking at Tony out of the corner of his eye—“You could come with, if you want.”

Tony’s brows furrow. “I thought you didn’t need to be followed anymore.”

Has he missed something? Has Peter not been doing as well as he thought? Has—

Peter shakes his head. “Not with you following me. Come with, like you could help Spider-Man—help _me_ —do my thing.” A beat. “If you want,” he tacks on once more.

Tony mulls it over, the sounds of the car beneath them purring in the ensuing silence.

He doesn’t know why Peter would be inviting him along, now. Spider-Man is _his_ thing, and Tony doesn’t think he’d want it having anything to do with HYDRA, so why would he invite _Tony—_

Tony’s mouth goes dry, and his fingers tighten incrementally on the wheel.

He’s not HYDRA anymore, is he? Neither of them is.

(Neither of them has been for a while, and after seeing Ned, someone so distanced from the pain that’s been snapping at his heels for so long, Peter wants to give Tony the same opportunity to be utterly disconnected from it all.)

Tony nods. “I’d like that,” he agrees, and after they get back to the Tower and change into clothes more fitting for such an excursion, Tony finds out what it’s like to have people look at him and his enhancements and see someone to like, not fear.

He ties a ripped shirt around his head to mask everything on his face below his eyes, and instead of it being like his muzzle, there’s a freedom in the fabric flapping in the wind as he climbs after Spider-Man, separating Tony Stark from a different, freer version of himself he didn’t know existed.

He drops in on a scene with Spider-Man, and people don’t see him as a Soldier, a threat. They don’t know about his body count or the reactor or any of the suffering he’s gone through. They see another protector, and as a woman thanks them for saving her purse from a thief, as they leave a would-be robber on a wall to, in Peter’s words, “dwell on his actions”, as they walk a little kid, around the same size as Peter when Tony first met him, home, Tony understands why Peter loves what he does so much.

It’s nice to be a billionaire, true. There’s a sense of purpose there, but it’s not this, the satisfaction of just being _good._

And when, at last, they head back to the Tower because Bucky calls and says Sam and May have teamed up to make dinner, Tony finds himself unbelievably grateful that Peter would share something so—for lack of a better word— _sacred_ with someone like Tony.

He’s always been a good kid, always been Tony’s, even if neither of them realized it, but sometimes Tony thinks about where he would be without him and is dumbstruck at the idea of still responding to HYDRA’s beck and call.

Peter and Tony have always saved each other, and that’s something HYDRA never could’ve predicted—their Soldier, having forgotten so much else, being retaught how to love.

Tony also recognizes, however, that they couldn’t have done it without the rest of them, and after dinner, he, feeling unusually off-kilter with the depth of his appreciation, admits it at large. They’re all sitting around the living room, talking to one another about anything and everything the way they’ve somehow learned to do, and when there’s a lull, he blurts it out: “You know, I know it hasn’t always been easy. Not with me, because I can be an asshole, and—uh—definitely not with where I came from, because those guys are even bigger assholes, but thank you all. For everything.”

To that, he receives a lot of responses—a gentle smile from Pepper, a reliable stare from Steve, a raised brow from Sam—but Bucky speaks first, a gentle tease to his voice. “You know, I think that’s the most emotion I’ve seen you willingly show in one go.”

Tony goes from observing the room as a whole to glaring at Bucky because _okay, so what if it is, he’ll rescind his thank you to him if he’s going to be_ rude. That’s what he was planning on saying, anyway, with an appropriate amount of dramatic flair, but he’s distracted, and Peter, the shithead, takes him by surprise. “The first person to hug him gets five dollars from me.”

Tony’s eyes widen, and his attention snaps to Peter. “No— _no_ , if anyone touches me, I will ki—”

Rhodey, directly to his left, cuts him off, swamping him in a tight embrace that Tony _could_ get out of if he tried but doesn’t because— _sue him_ —it feels nice, not that he’ll admit it. “Shut up, Tones,” he says, and then the others close in, varying degrees of tactile but all _there_ , eclectic and cluttered and perfect because Tony never thought he’d enjoy something so pure so much.

(Never thought he’d get the chance.)

It’s a community of his own, something he made out of ashes and likes despite the mess it might make from time to time. It’s everything Tony needs, and he goes to bed that night with an echo of the warmth of it all nestled next to his heart, a twin flame to the joy he got out of what Peter showed him as Spider-Man. It’s a previously unimaginable reality, that fighting doesn’t have to be something to dread or pour too much of himself into, and Tony wonders if he can find himself a future within it. 

There’s Peter and Spider-Man on one hand, SHIELD on the other.

Tony’s rested and grown, and now, he thinks there’s a place somewhere for every version of himself available, should he pursue it. Tony Stark, billionaire, is focused on using his wealth positively, and Tony, a boy turned as brutally as possible into a man and alive in spite of it, can use the abilities he’s received along the way to do the same, no matter how hard it is to find a balance between the two, no matter how his mind will fight him along the way, no matter how long it takes.

Over a decade ago, Tony began to worm his way free with the sight of a little boy and his brown, brown eyes, and if he made it this far off of something that should’ve been so little, he’s certain there’s no stopping him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And?? That’s a wrap?
> 
> This fic has been a labor of love that has lasted me seven months and a _lot_ of time in quarantine. I know the world is a little bleak right now and it can be hard to focus on things like fandom, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you to anyone who has taken the time to follow this fic and the twenty five weeks it’s taken to post it all. Whether you’ve left kudos, comments, or simply read, I appreciate it more than you know.
> 
> To everyone who has taken the time to give me feedback, know that I couldn’t have done this without you. My regular commenters know who they are, and every Sunday night since I began posting, I’ve refreshed my e-mail waiting to see familiar users pop up.
> 
> My Marvel-only blog, ambivalentmarvel, is always open to anyone who wants to chat about ct or anything else, and if you haven’t already, in the notes for this work as a whole, please check out the amazing art (courtesy of sreppub on Tumblr bc Ali is the best) and remix of this fic linked there, and drop a reblog or comment if you do. I continue to be blown away by the thought that anyone would like this fic enough to make content based around it, and those works mean the world to me.
> 
> When I started this fic, I had no idea it would get this long, so once again, thank you to anyone and everyone who has read it in full. It’s been an amazing journey, and I’m so excited for the story to exist in its finished form for everyone to see. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I’m super excited to share this fic, which is a rewrite of a rewrite, lmao, but here are some things that you should know about it.
> 
> 1) This fic bounces between flashbacks and the present quite a bit, especially in the beginning, so make sure you’re reading the headings of each section (ex: _HYDRA BASE - PRESENT)_ so you know what’s up.
> 
> 2) The “present” in this fic takes place from 2014-2015, around CA:WS, but for sections in Tony/the Soldier’s POV, this is only labeled as _PRESENT_ due to the fact that he has no idea when things happen because brainwashing.
> 
> 3) The majority of this fic has been pre-written, and updates will be on Sundays. I see this fic coming out between 50-60k, and it’s currently sitting around 40k.
> 
> Edit: While I still have over a month’s worth of backlog for this fic, I am a dirty liar and, frankly, have no idea how long it is going to be. At the time of me writing this, the word count clocks in at just under 90k. We’ll be here for a while, folks.
> 
> 4) This fic DOES NOT align with the Infinity Saga because, funnily enough, when you take the man that started the MCU out of the equation because he’s busy being used as a super soldier, it falls apart pretty fast and I don’t feel like fixing it. Therefore, there are no Avengers in this universe, but the fact that Captain America survived the ice and is working with the military is common knowledge. However, most other superheroes (Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, etc.) aren’t. The only MCU movie that greatly influences this au is CA:WS.
> 
> 5) I tore canon apart for this au and am using it as my sandbox. Inaccuracies in or deviations from what canon has established throughout this fic should be expected as a result.
> 
> 6) I promise this story will have an ending where, at minimum, its characters are beginning to heal. It’s getting there that’s the hard part.
> 
> With that out of the way, as always, thank you for reading! I’m excited to share this project, which has spiraled out of control in my time in quarantine, and I hope you’re excited to read it. 
> 
> Thank you to [sreppub](https://sreppub.tumblr.com) for letting me yell about this (and all of my other WIPs) to you—you’re the real MVP here and ily.
> 
> Edit: The lovely and talented sreppub mentioned above has made [art](https://sreppub.tumblr.com/post/620503498210066432/drew-some-tonies-from-my-darling-ambivalentmarvel) for this fic! You should totally check it out and give it (and her) the love it deserves!
> 
> If you liked what you read, kudos and comments are always appreciated! Thanks for stopping by, and if you want to yell at me about this fic or anything else that strikes your fancy, I have a Marvel-only blog that can be found [here!](https://ambivalentmarvel.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [grotesque and questionable / ontological status](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655007) by [verulams (finnlogan)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnlogan/pseuds/verulams)




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